











1 



I 








« 






Tmc I jGirr 
That Tailed 


RI’DYARD Kif^ling 


CHICAGO 


W. B. CON KEY COMPANY 



Libnar/ of Congress 

Iwu Copies Received 

AUG 18 1900 


Copyright entry 



SECOND COPY. 


Delivered to 

ORDER DIVISION, 

AUG 27 1900 



Copyright, looo, by W. B. Conkey Company. 


68743 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 



CHAPTE'R I. 

So we settled it all when the storm was done. 

As comf ’y as comf ’y could be ; 

And I was to wait in the barn, my dears, 

Because I was only three. 

And Teddy would run to the rainbow’s foot. 
Because he was five and a man ; 

And that’s how it all began, my dears. 

And that’s how it all began. 

— Big Barn Stories. 

“What do you think she’d do if she caught 
us? We oughtn’t to have it, you know,” said 
Maisie. 

“Beat me, and lock you up in your bed- 
room,” Dick answered, without hesitation. 
“Have you got the cartridges?” 

“Yes: they’re in my pocket, but they are 
joggling horribly. Do pin-fire cartridges go 
off of their own accord?” 

“Don’t know. Take the revolver, if you 
are afraid, and let me carry them.” 

“I’m not afraid.” Maisie strode forward 
swiftly, a hand in her pocket and her chin in 
the air. Dick followed with a small pin-fire 
revolver. 

The children had discovered that their lives 
would be unendurable without pistol-practice. 

3 


4 THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 

After much forethought and self-denial, Dick 
had saved seven shillings and sixpence, the 
price of a badly-constucted Belgian revolver. 
Maisie could only contribute half a crown to 
the syndicate for the purchase of a hundred 
cartridges. “You can save better than I can, 
Dick, she explained. “I like nice things to 
eat, and it doesn't matter to you. Besides, 
boys ought to do these things. ’’ 

Dick grumbled a little at the arrangement, 
but went out and made the purchases, which 
the children were then on their way to test. 
Revolvers did not lie in the scheme of their 
daily life as decreed for them by the guardian 
who was incorrectly supposed to stand in the 
place of a mother to these two orphans. Dick 
had been under her care for six years, during 
which time she had made her profit of the 
allowances supposed to be expended on his 
clothes, and, partly through thoughtlessness, 
partly through a natural desire to pain, — she 
was a widow of some years, anxious to marry : 
again, had made his days burdensome on his i 
young shoulders. Where he had looked for 
love, she gave him first aversion and then 
hate. Where he, growing older, had sought a 
little sympathy, she gave him ridicule. The 
many hours that she could spare from the or- 
dering of her small house she devoted to what 
she called the home training of Dick Heldar. 
Her religion, manufactured in the main 
her own intelligence and an ardent study of 
the Scriptures, was an aid to her in this mat- 
ter. At such times as she herself was not per- > 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


5 


sonally displeased with Dick, she left him to 
understand that he had a heavy account to 
settle with his Creator ; wherefore Dick learned 
to loathe his God as intensely as he loathed 
Mrs. Jennett; and this is not a wholesome 
frame of mind for the young. Since she chose 
to regard him as a hopeless liar, when dread 
of pain drove him to his first untruth, he nat- 
urally developed into a liar, but an economical 
and self-contained one, never throwing away 
the least unnecessary fib, and never hesitating 
at the blackest, if it were only plausible, that 
might make his life a little easier. The treat- 
ment taught him at least the power of living 
alone, — a power that was of service to him 
when he went to a public school and the boys 
laughed at his clothes, which were poor in 
quality and much mended. In the holidays 
he returned to the teachings of Mrs. Jennett, 
and, that the chain of discipline might not be 
weakened by association with the world, was 
generally beaten, on one count or another, 
before he had been twelve hours under her 
roof. 

The autumn of one year brought him a com- 
panion in bondage, a long-haired, gray-eyed 
little atom, as self-contained as himself, who 
moved about the house silently, and for the 
first few weeks spoke only to the goat that was 
her chiefest friend on earth and lived in the 
back garden. Mrs. Jennett objected to the 
goat on the grounds that he was un-Christian, 
— which he certainly was. “Then,” said the 
atom, choosing her words very deliberately. 


6 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“I shall write to my lawyer-peoples and tell 
them that you are a very bad woman. Amom- 
ma is mine, mine, mine!” Mrs. Jennett 
made a movement to the hall, where certain 
umbrellas and canes stood in a rack. The 
atom understood as clearly as Dick what this 
meant. “I have been beaten before,” she 
said, still in the same passionless voice; “I 
have been beaten worse than you can ever beat 
me. If you beat me I shall write to my law- 
yer-peoples and tell them that you do not give 
me enough to eat. I am not afraid of you. ” 
Mrs. Jennett did not go into the hall, and the 
atom, after a pause to assure herself that all 
danger of war was past, went out, to weep 
bitterly on Amomma’s neck. 

Dick learned to know her as Maisie, and at 
first mistrusted her profoundly, for he feared 
that she might interfere with the small liberty 
of action left to him. She did not, however; 
and she volunteered no friendliness until Dick 
had taken the first steps. Long before the 
holidays were over, the stress of punishment 
shared in common drove the children together, 
if it were only to play into each other’s hands 
as they prepared lies for Mrs. Jennett’s use. 
When Dick returned to school, Maisie whis- 
pered, “Now I shall be all alone to take care 
of myself; but,” and she nodded her head 
bravely, “I can do it. You promised to send 
Amomma a grass collar. Send it soon. ” A 
week later she asked for that collar by return 
of post, and was not pleased when she learned 
that it took time to make. When at last 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


7 


Dick forwarded the gift she forgot to thank 
him for it. 

Many holidays had come and gone since 
that day, and Dick had grown into a lanky 
hobbledehoy, more than ever conscious of his 
bad clothes. Not for a moment had Mrs. Jen- 
nett relaxed her tender care of him, but the 
average canings of a public school — Dick fell 
under punishment about three times a month 
— filled him with contempt for her powers. 
“She doesn’t hurt,” he explained to Maisie, 
who urged him to rebellion, “and she is kinder 
to you after she has whacked me.” Dick 
shambled through the days unkept in body 
and savage in soul, as the smaller boys of the 
school learned to know, for when the spirit 
moved him he would hit them, cunningly and 
with science. The same spirit made him more 
than once try to tease Maisie, but the girl 
refused to be made unhappy. “We are both 
miserable as it is, ” said she. “What is the 
use of trying to make things worse? Let’s 
find things to do, and forget things.” 

The pistol was the outcome of that search. 
It could only be used on the muddiest fore- 
shore of the beach, far away from bathing- 
machines and pier-heads, below the grassy 
slopes of Fort Keeling. The tide ran out 
nearly two miles on that coast, and the many- 
colored mud-banks, touched by the sun, sent 
up a lamentable smell of dead weed. It was 
late in the afternoon when Dick and Maisie 
arrived on their ground, Amomma trotting 
patiently behind. 


8 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“Mf!” said Maisie, sniffing the air. “I won- 
der what makes the sea so smelly. I don’t like 
it.” 

‘‘You never like anything that isn’t made 
just for you,” said Dick bluntly. ‘‘Give me 
the cartridges, and I’ll try first shot. How far 
does one of these little revolvers carry?” 

‘‘Oh, half a mile,” said Maisie promptly. 
‘‘At least it makes an awful noise. Be careful 
with the cartridges; I don’t like those jagged 
stick-up things on the rim. Dick, do be care- 
ful.” 

‘‘All right. I know how to load. I’ll fire 
at the breakwater out there. ” 

Fie fired, and Amomma ran away bleating. 
The bullet threw up a spurt of mud to the 
right of the weed-wreathed piles. 

“Throws high and to the right. You try, 
Maisie. Mind, it’s loaded all round. ” 

Maisie took the pistol and stepped delicately 
to the verge of the mud, her hand firmly closed 
on the butt, her mouth and left eye screwed 
up. Dick sat down on a tuft of bank and 
laughed. Amomma returned very cautiously. 
He was accustomed to strange experiences in 
his afternoon walks, and, finding the cart- 
ridge-box unguarded, made investigations with 
his nose. Maisie fired, but could not see where 
the bullet went. 

“I think it hit the post,” she said, shading 
her eyes and looking out across the sailless 
sea. 

“I know it has gone out to the Marazion 
Bell Buoy,” said Dick, with a chuckle. “Fire 


THE LIG^T THAT FAILED. 


9 


low and to the left; then perhaps you’ll get it. 
Oh, look at Amomma! — he’s eating the cart- 
ridges!” 

Maisie turned, the' 'revolver in her hand, 
just in time to see Amomma scampering away 
from the pebbles Dick threw after him. 
Nothing is sacred to a billy-goat. Being well 
fed and the adored of his mistress, Amomma 
had naturally swallowed two loaded pin-fire 
cartridges. Maisie hurried up to assure her- 
self that Dick had not miscounted the tale. 

“Yes, he’s eaten two.” 

“Horrid little beast! Then they’ll joggle 
about inside him, and blow up, and serve him 
right. . . . Oh, Dick! have I killed you?” 

Revolvers are tricky things for young hands 
to deal with. Maisie could not explain how it 
had happened, but a veil of reeking smoke 
separated her from Dick, and she was quite 
certain that the pistol had gone off in his face. 
Then she heard him sputter, and dropped on 
her knees, beside him, crying, “Dick, you 
aren’t hurt, are you? I didn’t mean it.” 

“Of course, you didn’t,” said Dick, emerg- 
ing from the smoke and wiping his cheek. 
“But you nearly blinded me. That powder 
stuff stings awfully.” A neat little splash of 
gray lead on a stone showed where the bullet 
had gone. Maisie began to whimper. 

“Don’t,” said Dick, jumping to his feet and 
shaking himself. “I’m not a bit hurt. ” 

“No, but I might have killed you,” pro- 
tested Maisie, the corners of her mouth droop- 
ing. “What should I have done then?” 

2 Light that Failed 


10 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“Gone home and told Mrs. Jennett. ” Dick 
grinned at the thought; then, softening, 
“Please don’t worry about it. Besides, we are 
wasting time. We’ve got to get back to tea. 
I’ll take the revolver a bit.” 

Maisie would have wept on the least encour^ 
agement, but Dick’s indifference, albeit his 
hand was shaking as he picked up the pistol, 
restrained her. She lay panting on the beach 
while Dick methodically bombarded the break- 
water. “Got it at last!” he exclaimed, as a 
lock of weed flew from the wood. 

“Let me try,’’ said Maisie, imperiously. 
“I’m all right now.” 

They fired in turns till the rickety little re- 
volver nearly shook itself to pieces, and Am- 
omma the outcast — because he might blow up 
at any moment — browsed in the background 
and wondered why stones were thrown at him. 
Then they found a balk of timber floating in a 
pool which was commanded by the seaward 
slope of Fort Keeling, and they sat down to- 
gether before this new target. 

“Next holidays,” said Dick, as the now 
thoroughly fouled revolver kicked wildly in his 
hand, “we'll get another pistol, — central fire, 
— that will carry farther. ’ ’’ 

“There won’t be any next holidays for me,” 
said Maisie. “I’m going away.” 

“Where to?” 

“I don’t know. My lawyers have written to 
Mrs. Jennett, and I’ve got to be educated some 
where, — in France, perhaps, — I don’t know 
where; but I shall be glad to go away.” 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


II 


**^1 shan’t like it a bit. I suppose I shall be 
left. Look here, Maisie, is it really true 
you’re going? Then these holidays will be 
the last I shall see anything of you ; and I go 
back to school next week. I wish ” 

The young blood turned his cheeks scarlet. 
Maisie v/as picking grass-tufts and throwing 
them down the slope of a yellow sea-poppy 
nodding all by itself to the illimitable levels 
of the mud'flats and the milk-white sea beyond. 

“I wish,” she said, after a pause, “that I 
could see you again, sometime. You wish 
that, too?” 

“Yes, but it would have been better if — if — 
you had — shot straight over there — down by 
the breakwater.” 

Maisie looked with large eyes for a moment. 
And this was th^ boy who only ten days before 
had decorated Amomma’s horns with cut-paper 
ham-frills and turned him out, a bearded de- 
rision, among the public ways! Then she 
dropped her eyes; this was not the boy. 

“Don’t be stupid,” she said, reprovingly, 
and with swift instinct attacked the side-issue. 

“How selfish you are! Just think what I 
should have felt if that horrid thing had killed 
you! I’m quite miserable enough already.” 

“Why? Because you’re going away from 
Mrs. Jennett?” 

“No.” 

“From me, then?” 

No answer for a long time. Dick dared not 
look at her. He felt, though he did not know, 
all that the past four years had been to him. 


12 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


and this the more accurately since he had no 
knowledge to put his feelings in words. 

“I don’t know,” she said. ‘‘I suppose it 
is. ” 

“Maisie, you must know. I’m not suppos- 
ing.” 

“Let’s go home,” said Maisie, weakly. 

But Dick was not minded to retreat. 

“I can’t say things,” he pleaded, “and I’m 
awfully sorry for teasing you about Amomma 
the other day. It’s all different now, Maisie, 
can’t you see? And you might have told me 
that you were going, instead of leaving me to 
find out.” 

“You didn’t. I did tell. Oh, Dick, what’s 
the use of worrying?” 

“There isn’t any; but we’ve been together 
years and years, and I didn’t know how much 
I cared.” 

“I don’t believe you ever did care.” 

“No, I didn’t; but I do, — I care awfully 
now. Maisie,” he gulped, — “Maisie, darling, 
say you care, too, please. ’ ’ 

“I do; indeed I do; but it won’t be any 
use.” 

“Why?” 

“Because I am going away.” 

“Yes, but if you proimse before you go. 
Only say — will you?” A second “darling” 
came to his lips more easily than the first. 
There were few endearments in Dick’s home 
or school life; he had to find them by instinct. 
Dick took the little hand blackened with the 
escaped gas of the revolver. 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


13 


“I promise,” she said solemnly; “but if I 
care there is no need of promising. ’ ' 

“And you do care?” For the first time in 
the past few minutes their eyes met and spoke 
for them who had no skill in speech. 

“Oh, Dick, don’t! please don’t! It was all 
right when we said good -morning; but now 
it’s all different!” Amomma looked on from 
afar. He had seen his property quarrel fre- 
quently, but he had never seen kisses ex- 
changed before. The yellow sea-poppy was 
wiser, and nodded its head approvingly. Con- 
sidered as a kiss, that was a failure, but since 
it was the first, other than those demanded by 
duty, in all the world that either had ever 
given or taken, it opened to them new worlds, 
and every one of them glorious, so that they 
were lifted above the consideration of any 
worlds at all, especially those in which tea is 
necessary and sat still, holding each other’s 
hands and saying not a word. 

“You can’t forget now, ” said Dick at last. 
There was that on his cheek that stung more 
than gunpowder. 

“I shouldn’t have forgotten anyhow,” said 
Maisie, and they looked at each other and saw 
that each was changed from the companion of 
an hour ago to a wonder and a mystery they 
could not understand. The sun began to set, 
and a night-wind thrashed along the bents of 
the foreshore. 

“We shall be awfully late for tea, ” said 
Maisie. “Let’s go home. ” 

“Let’s use the rest of the cartridges first,” 


14 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


said Dick; and he helped Maisie down the 
slope of the fort to the sea, — a descent she was 
quite capable of accomplishing at full speed. 
Equally gravely Maisie took the grimy hand. 
Dick bent forward clumsily. Maisie drew her 
hand away, and Dick blushed. 

“It’s very pretty,” he said. 

“Pooh!” said Maisie, with a little laugh of 
gratified vanity. She stood close to Dick as 
he loaded the revolver for the last time and 
fired across the sea with a vague notion at the 
back of his head that he was protecting Maisie 
from all the evils in the world. A puddle far 
across the mud caught the last rays of the sun 
and turned into a wrathful red disk. The light 
held Dick’s attention for a moment, and as he 
raised his revolver there fell upon him a re- 
newed sense of the miraculous, in that he was 
standing by Maisie who had promised to care 
for him for an indefinite length of time till 

such date as A gust of the growing wind 

drove the girl’s long black hair across his face 
as she stood with her hand on his shoulder 
calling Amomma “a little beast,’’ and for a 
moment he was in the dark, — a darkness that 
stung. The bullet went singing out to the 
empty sea. 

“Spoilt my aim,’’ said he, shaking his head. 
“There aren’t any more cartridges. We shall 
have to run home.’’ But they did not run. 
They walked very slowly, arm in arm. And 
it was a matter of indifference to them 
whether the neglected Amomma with two pin- 
fire cartridges in his inside blew up or trotted 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


15 


beside them ; for they had come into a golden 
heritage and were disposing of it with all the 
wisdom of their years. 

“And I shall be " quoth Dick, valiantly. 

Then he checked himself: “I don't know what 
I shall be. I don’t seem to be able to pass any 
exams., but I can make awful caricatures of 
the masters. Ho! ho!" 

“Be an artist, then,” said Maisie. “You’re 
always laughing at my trying to d;*aw : and it 
will do you good.” 

“I'll never laugh at anything you do,’’ he 
answered. “I’ll be an artist, and I’ll do 
things. ’ ’ 

“Artists always want money, don’t they?’’ 

“I’ve got a hundred and twenty pounds a 
year of my own. My guardians tell me I’m to 
have it when I come of age. That will be 
enough to begin with. ’ ’ 

“Ah, I’m rich,’’ said Maisie. “I’ve got 
three hundred a year all my own when I’m 
twenty-one. That is why Mrs. Jennett is 
kinder to me than she is to you. I wish, 
though, that I had somebody that belonged to 
me, — just a father or a mother. ’’ 

“You belong to me,’’ said Dick, “forever 
and ever.” 

“I know I do. It’s very nice.’’ She 
squeezed his arm. The kindly darkness hid 
them both, and, emboldened because he could 
only just see the profile of Maisie ’s cheek with 
the long lashes veiling the gray eyes, Dick at 
the front door delivered himself of the words 


16 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


he had been boggling over for the last two 
hours. 

“And I — love you, Maisie, “ he said, in a 
whisper that seemed to him to ring across the 
world, — the world that he would to-morrow or 
the next day set out and conquer. 

There was a scene, not, for the sake of dis- 
cipline, to be reported, when Mrs. Jennett 
would have fallen upon him, first for disgrace- 
ful unpunctuality, and secondly for nearly kill- 
ing himself with a forbidden weapon. 

“I was playing with it, and it went off by 
itself,” said Dick, when the powder-pocked 
cheek could no longer be hidden, “but if you 
think you’re going to lick me you’re wrong. 
You are never going to touch me again. Sit 
down and give me my tea. You can’t cheat 
us out of that, anyhow.” 

Mrs. Jennett gasped and became livid. 
Maisie said nothing, but encouraged Dick with 
her eyes, and he behaved abominably all that 
evening. Mrs. Jennett prophesied an imme- 
diate judgment of Providence and a descent 
into Tophet later, but Dick walked in paradise 
and would not hear. Only when he was going 
to bed Mrs. Jennett recovered and asserted 
herself. He had bidden Maisie good-night, 
with down-dropped eyes and from a distance. 

“If you aren’t a gentleman you might try to 
behave like one,” said Mrs, Jennett spitefully. 
“You’ve been quarreling with Maisie again. ” 

This meant that the regulation good-night 
kiss had been omitted. Maisie, white to the 
lips, thrust her cheek forward with a fine air of 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


17 


indifference, and was duly pecked by Dick, 
who tramped out of the room red as fire. 
That night he dreamed a wild dream. He had 
won all the world and brought it to Maisie in 
a cartridge-box, but she turned it over with 
her foot, and, instead of saying, “Thank you,” 
cried : 

“Where is the grass collar you promised for 
Amomma? Oh, how selfish you are!” 


2 


18 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


CHAPTER 11. 

Then we brought the lances down, then the bugles blew, 
When we went to Kandahar, ridin’ two an’ two, 

Ridin’, ridin’, ridin’, two an' two, 

Ta ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra. 

All the way to Kandahar, ridin’ two an’ two. 

— Barrack- Room Ballad. 

“I’m not angry with the British public, but I 
do wish we had a few thousandof them scattered 
among these rocks. They wouldn’t be in such 
a hurry to get at their morning papers then. 
Can’t you imagine the regulation householder 
— Lover of Justice, Constant Reader, Pater- 
familias, and all that lot — frizzling on hot 
gravel?” 

“With a blue veil over his head, and his 
clothes in strips. Has any man here a needle? 
I’ve got a piece of sugar-sack.” 

“I’ll lend you a packing-needle for six square 
inches of it, then. Both my knees are worn 
through. ’ ' 

“Why not six square acres, while you’re 
about it? But lend me the needle, and I’ll see 
what I can do with the selvage. I don’t think 
there’s enough to protect my royal body from 
the cold blast, as it is. What are you doing 
with that everlasting sketch book of yours, 
Dick?” 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


19 


“Study of our Special Correspondent repair- 
ing his wardrobe, “ said Dick gravely, as the 
other man kicked off a pair of sorely worn 
riding-breeches and began to fit a square of 
coarse canvas over the most obvious open 
space. He grunted disconsolately as the 
vastness of the void developed itself. 

“Sugar-bags, indeed! Hi! you pilot-man 
there! lend me all the sails of that whale-boat.*’ 

A fez-crowned head bobbed up in-the stern- 
sheets, divided itself into exact halves with 
one flashing grin and bobbed down again. 
The man of the tattered breeches, clad only in 
a Norfolk jacket and a gray flannel shirt, went 
on with his clumsy sewing, while Dick chuckled 
over his sketch. 

Some twenty whale-boats were nuzzling a 
sandbank which was dotted with English 
soldiery of half a dozen corps, bathing or 
washing their clothes. A heap of boat-rollers, 
commissariat-boxes, sugar-bags, and flour and 
small-arm-ammunition cases showed where 
one of the whale-boats had been compelled 
to unload hastily ; and a regimental carpenter 
was swearing aloud as he tried, on a wholly 
insufficient allowance of white lead, to plaster 
up the sun-parched gaping seams of the boat 
herself. 

“First the bloomin’ rudder snaps, ” said he 
to the world in general; “then the mast goes; 
an’ then, s’ ’elp me, when she can’t do nothin’ 
else, she opens ’erself out like a cock-eyed 
Chinese lotus. ’’ 

“Exactly the case with my breeches, who- 


20 


THE LICxHT THAT FAILED. 


ever you are,” said the tailor, without looking 
up. ‘‘Dick, I wonder when 1 shall see a 
decent shop again.” 

There was no answer, save the incessant 
angry murmur of the Nile as it raced round 
a basalt-walled bend and foamed across a rock 
ridge half a mile up-stream. It was as though 
the brown weight of the river would drive 
the white men back to their own country. 
The indescribable scent of Nile mud in the air 
told that the stream was falling and that the 
next few miles would be no light thing for the 
whale-boats to overpass. The desert ran down 
almost to the banks, where among gray, red, 
and black hillocks, a camel corps was en- 
camped. No man dared even for a day lose 
touch of the slow-moving boats; there had 
been no fighting for weeks past, and through- 
out all that time the Nile had never spared 
them. Rapid had followed rapid, rock, rock, 
and island-group, island-group, till the rank 
and file had long since lost all count of direc- 
tion and very nearly of time. They were mov- 
ing somewhere, they did not know why, 
to do something, they did not know what. 
Before them lay the Nile, and at the other end 
of it was one Gordon, fighting for dear life, in 
a town called Khartoum. There were columns 
of British troops in the desert, or in one of the 
many deserts; there were columns on the 
river, there were yet more columns waiting 
to embark on the river; there were fresh 
drafts waiting at Assioot and Assuan; there 
were lies and rumors running over the face of 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


21 


the hopeless land from Suakim to the Sixth 
Cataract, and men supposed generally that 
there must be some one in authority to direct 
the general scheme of the many movements. 
The duty of that particular river-column was 
to keep the whale-boats afloat in the water, to 
avoid trampling on the villagers’ crops when 
the gangs “tracked” the boats with lines 
thrown from midstream, to get as much sleep 
and food as possible, and, above all, to press 
on without delay in the teeth of the churning 
Nile. 

With the soldiers sweated and toiled the 
correspondents of the newspapers, and they 
-were almost as ignorant as their companions. 
But it was above all things necessary 'that 
England at breakfast should be amused and 
thrilled and interested, whether Gordon lived 
or died, or half the British army went to pieces 
in the sands. The Soudan campaign was a 
picturesque one and lent itself to vivid word- 
painting. Now and again a “Special” man- 
aged to get slain, —which was not altogether a 
disadvantage to the paper that employed him 
— and more often the hand-to-hand nature of 
the fighting allowed of miraculous escapes 
which were worth telegraphing home at 
eighteenpence the word. There were many 
correspondents with many corps and columns, 
— from the veterails who had followed on the 
heels of the cavalry that occupied Cairo in ’82, 
what time Arabi Pasha called himself King, 
who had seen the first miserable work round 
-Suakim when the sentries were cut up nightly 


22 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


and the scrub swarmed with spears, to young- 
sters jerked into the business at the end of a 
telegraph-wire to take the place of their bet- 
ters killed or invalided. 

Among the seniors — those who knew every 
shift and change in the perplexing postal 
arrangements, the value of the seediest, weed- 
iest Egyptian garron offered for sale in Cairo 
or Alexandria, who could talk a telegraph clerk 
into amiability and soothe the ruffled vanity of 
a newly appointed staff-offleer when press reg- 
ulations became burdensome — was the man in 
the flannel shirt, the black-browed Torpenhow. 
He represented the Central Southern Syndi- 
cate in the campaign, as he had represented it 
in the Egyptian war, and elsewhere. The 
syndicate did not concern itself greatly with 
criticisms of attack and the like. It supplied 
the masses, and all it demanded was pictur- 
esqueness and abundance of detail. There is 
more joy in England over one soldier who in- 
subordinately steps out of a square to rescue a 
comrade than over twenty generals slaving 
even to baldness over the gross details of 
transport and commissariat. 

He had met at Suakim a young man, sitting 
on the edge of a recentl}'" abandoned redoubt 
about the size of a hat-box, sketching a clump 
of shell-torn bodies on the gravel plain. 

“What are you for?” said Torpenhow. The 
formula of the correspondent is that of the 
commercial traveler on the road. 

“My own hand,” said the young man, with- 
out looking up. “Have you any tobacco?” 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


23 


Torpenhow waited till the sketch was fin- 
ished, and when he had looked at it said, 
“What’s your business here?” 

“Nothing. There was a row, so I came. 
I’m supposed to be doing something down at 
the painting-slips among the boats, or else I’m 
in charge of the condenser on one of the water- 
ships. I’ve forgotten which.” 

“You’ve cheek enough to build a redoubt 
with,” said Torpenhow, and took stock of the 
new acquaintance. “Do you always draw like 
that?” 

The young man produced more sketches. 

“Row on a Chinese pig-boat,” said he, sen- 
ten tiously, showing them one after another. — 
“Chief mate dirked by a comprador. — Just 
ashore off Hakodate. — Somali muleteer being 
flogged. — Star-shell bursting over camp at Ber- 
bera. — Slave-dhow being chivied round Tajur- 
rah Bay. — Soldier lying dead in the moonlight 
outside Suakim, throat cut by Fuzzies.” 

“H’m!” said Torpenhow, “can’t say I care 
for Vereschagin-and- water myself, but there’s 
no accounting for tastes. Doing anything now, 
are you?” 

“No. Amusing myself here. ” 

Torpenhow looked at the aching desolation 
of the place. “Faith, you’ve queer notions of 
amusement. Got any money?” 

“Enough to go on with. L'ook here: you 
want me to do war-work?” 

“I don’t. My syndicate may, though. You 
can draw more than a little, and I don’t sup- 
pose you care much what you get, do you?” 


24 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“Not this time. I want my chance first.” 

Torpenhow looked at the sketches again, and 
nodded. “Yes, you’re right to take your first 
chante when you can get it.” 

He rode away swiftly through the Gate of 
the Two War-Ships, rattled across the cause- 
way into the town and wired to his syndicate, 
“Got man here, picture- work. Good and 
cheap. Shall I arrange? Will do letter-press 
with sketches.” 

The man on the redoubt sat swinging his 
legs and murmuring, “I knew the chance would 
come, sooner or later. By God, they’ll have 
to sweat for it if I come through this business 
alive!” 

In the evening Torpenhow was able to 
announce to his friend that the Central South- 
ern Agency was willing to take him on trial, 
paying expenses for three months. “And, by 
the way, what’s your name?” said Torpenhow. 

“Heldar. Do they give me a free hand?” 

“They’ve taken you on chance. You must 
justify the choice. You’d better stick to me. 
I’m going up-country with a column, and I’ll 
do what I can for you. Give me some of your 
sketches taken here, and I’ll send ’em along.” 
To himself he said, “That’s the best bargain 
the Central Southern has ever made ; and they 
got me cheaply enough.” 

So it came to pass that, after some purchase 
of horse-flesh and arrangements financial and 
political, Dick was made free of the New and 
Honorable Fraternity of war correspondents, 
who possess the inalienable right of doing as 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


25 


much work as they can and getting as much 
for it as Providence and their owners shall 
please. To these things are added in time, if 
the brother be worthy, the power of glib speech 
that neither man nor woman can resist when a 
meal or a bed is in question, the eye of a horse- 
coper, the skill of a cook, the constitution of a 
bullock, the digestion of an ostrich, and an 
infinite adaptability to all circumstances. But 
many die before they attain to this degree, and 
the past-masters in the craft appear for the 
most part in dress-clothes when they are in 
England, and thus is their glory hidden from 
the multitude. 

Dick followed Torpenhow wherever the lat- 
ter’s fancy chose to lead him, and between the 
two th6y managed to accomplish some work 
that almost satisfied themselves. It was not 
an easy life in any way, and under its influence 
the two were drawn very closely together, for 
they ate from the same dish, they shared the 
same water-bottle, and, most binding tie of all, 
their mails went off together. It was Dick who 
managed to make gloriously drunk a telegraph - 
clerk in a palm hut far beyond the Second Cat- 
aract, and, while the man lay in bliss on the 
floor, possessed himself of some laboriously 
acquired exclusive information, forwarded by 
a confiding correspondent of an opposition syn- 
dicate, made a careful duplicate of the matter, 
and brought the result to Torpenhow, who said 
that “all was fair in love or war-correspond- 
ence,” and built an excellent descriptive article 
from his rival’s riotous waste of words. It was 


26 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


Torpenhow who — but the tale of their advent- 
ures, together and apart, from Philae to the 
waste wilderness of Herawi and Muella, would 
fill many books. They had been penned into 
a square side by side, in deadly fear of being 
shot by over-excited soldiers ; they had fought 
with baggage-camels in the chill dawn; they 
had jogged along in silence under blinding sun 
on indefatigable little Egyptian horses; and 
they had floundered on the shallows of the 
Nile when the whale-boat in which they had 
found a berth chose to smite a hidden rock and 
rip out half her bottom-planks. 

Now they were sitting on the sand-bank, and 
the whale-boats were bringing up the remain- 
der of the column. 

“Yes,” said Torpenhow, as he put the last 
rude stitches into his over-long-neglected gear, 
“it has been a beautiful business.” 

“The patch, or the campaign?” said Heldar. 
“Don’t think much of either, myself.” 

“You want the Euryalus brought up above 
the Third Cataract, don’t you? and eighty-one- 
ton guns at Jakdul? Now, I’m quite satisfied 
with my breeches.” He turned round gravely 
to exhibit himself, after the manner of a clown. 

“It’s very pretty. Specially the lettering on 
the sack. G. B. T. Government Bullock 
Train. That’s a sack from India.” 

“It’s my initials: Gilbert Belling Torpen- 
how. I stole the cloth on purpose. What the 
mischief are the camel-corps doing yonder?” 
Torpenhow shaded his eyes and looked across 
the scrub-strewn gravel. 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


27 


A bugle blew furiously, and the men on the 
bank hurried to their arms and accouter- 
ments. 

“ ‘Pisan soldiery surprised while bathing,’ ” 
remarked Dick, calmly. “D’you remember 
the picture? It’s by Michael Angelo. All 
beginners copy it. That scrub’s alive with 
the enemy. ’ ’ 

The camel-corps on the bank yelled to the 
infantry to come to them, and a hoarse shout- 
ing down the river showed that the remainder 
of the column had wind of the trouble and was 
hastening to take share in it. As swiftly as a 
reach of still water is crisped by the wind, the 
rock-strewn ridges and scrub-topped hills were 
troubled and alive with armed men. Merci- 
fully, it occurred to these to stand far off for a 
time, to shout and gesticulate joyously. One 
man even delivered himself of a long story. 
The camel-corps did not fire. They were only 
too glad for a little breathing-space until some 
sort of square could be formed. The men on 
the sand-bank ran to their side; and the whale- 
boats, as they toiled up within shouting dis- 
tance, were thrust into the nearest bank and 
emptied of all save the sick and a few men to 
guard them. The Arab orator ceased his out- 
cries, and his friends howled. 

“They look like Mahdi’s men,” said Torpen- 
how, elbowdng himself into the crush of the 
square; “but what thousands of ’em there are! 
The tribes hereabout aren’t against us, I 
know. ’’ 

“Then the Mahdi’s taken another town,” 


28 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


said Dick, “and set all these yelping devils free 
to chaw us up. Lend me your glass.” 

“Our scouts should have told us of this. 
We’ve been trapped,” said a subaltern. 
“Aren’t the camel-guns ever going to begin? 
Hurry up, you men!” 

0 There was no need for any order. The men 
flung themselves panting against the sides of 
the square, for they had good reason to know 
that whoso was left outside when the fighting 
began would very probably die, in an extremely 
unpleasant fashion. ^ The little hundred-and- 
fifty pound camel-guns posted at one corner of 
the square opened the ball as the square moved 
forward by its right, to get possession of a 
knoll of rising ground. All had fought in this 
manner many times before, and there was no 
novelty in the entertainment: always the same 
hot and stifling formation, the smell of dust and 
leather, the same bolt-like rush of the enemy, 
the same pressure on the weakest side of the 
square, the few minutes of desperate hand-to- 
hand scuffle, and then the silence of the desert, 
broken only by the yells of those whom the 
handful of cavalry attempted to pursue. They 
had grown careless. The camel-guns spoke at 
intervals, and the square slouched forward amid 
the protests of the camels. Then came the 
attack of three thousand men who had not 
learned from books that it is impossible for 
troops in close order to attack against breech- 
loading fire. A few dropping shots heralded 
their approach, and a few horsemen led, but 
the bulk of the force was naked humanity, mad 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


29 


with rage, and armed with the spear and the 
sword. The instinct of the desert, where 
there is always much war, told them that the 
right flank of the square was the weakest, for 
they swung clear of the front. The camel- 
guns shelled them as they passed, and opened 
for an instant lanes through their midst, most 
like those quick-closing vistas in a Kentish 
hop-garden seen when the train races by at 
full speed; and the infantry fire, held till the 
opportune moment, dropped them in close- 
packed hundreds. No civilized troops in the 
world could have endured the hell through 
which they came, the living leaping high to 
avoid the dead clutching at their heels, the 
wounded cursing and staggering forward till 
they fell — a torrent black as the sliding water 
above a mill-dam — full on the right fiank of the 
square. Then the line of the dusty troops and 
the faint-blue desert sky overhead went out in 
rolling smoke, and the little stones on the 
heated ground and the tinder-dry clumps of 
scrub became matters of surpassing interest, 
for men measured their agonized retreat and 
recovery by these things, counting mechanic- 
ally and hewing their way back to chosen pebble 
and branch. There was no semblance of any 
concerted fighting. For aught the men knew, 
the enemy might be attempting all four sides 
of the square at once. Their business was to 
destroy what lay in front of them, to bayonet 
in the back those who passed over them, and, 
dying, to drag down the slayer till he could 
be knocked on the head by some avenging gun- 


80 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


.butt. Dick waited quietly with Torpenhow 
and a young doctor till the stress became unen- 
durable. There was no hope of attending to 
the wounded till the attack was repulsed, so 
the three moved forward gingerly toward the 
weakest side. There was a rush from without, 
and the hough- hough of the stabbing spears, 
and a man on a horse, followed by thirty or 
forty others, dashed through, yelling and hack- 
ing. The right flank of the square sucked them 
in after them, and the other sides sent help. 
The wounded, who knew that they had but a 
few hours more to live, caught at the enemy’s 
feet and brought them down, or, staggering to 
a discarded rifle, fired blindly into the scuffle 
that raged in the center of the square. Dick 
was conscious that somebody had cut him vio- 
lently across his helmet, that he had fired his 
revolver into a black, foam-flecked face which 
forthwith ceased to bear any resemblance to a 
face, and that Torpenhow had gone down under 
an Arab whom he had tried to “collar low,’ ^ 
and was turning over and over with his captive, 
feeling for the man’s eyes. The doctor was 
jabbing at a venture with a bayonet, and a 
helmetless soldier was firing over Dick’s shoul- 
der: the flying grains of powder stung his 
cheek. It was to Torpenhow that Dick turned 
by instinct. The representative of the Central 
Southern Syndicate had shaken himself clear 
of his enemy, and rose, wiping his thumb on 
his trousers. The Arab, both hands to his fore- 
head, screamed aloud, then snatched up • his 
spear and rushed at Torpenhow, who was pant- 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


31 


ing under shelter of Dick’s revolver. Dick 
fired twice, and the man dropped limply. His 
upturned face lacked one eye. The musketry- 
fire redoubled, but cheers mingled with it. 
The rush had failed, and the enemy were fly- 
ing. If the heart of the square were shambles, 
the ground beyond was a butcher’s shop. Dick 
thrust his way forward between the maddened 
men. The remnant of the enemy were retir- 
ing, and the few — the very few — English cav- 
alry were riding down the laggards. 

^ Beyond the lines of the dead, a broad blood- 
stained Arab spear, cast aside in the retreat, 
lay across a stump of scrub, and beyond this 
again the illimitable dark levels of the desert. 
The sun caught the steel and turned it into a 
savage red disk. Some one behind him was 
saying, “Ah, get away, you brute!’’ Dick 
raised his revolver and pointed toward the 
desert. His eye was held by the red splash in 
the distance, and the clamor about him seemed 
to die down to a very far-away whisper, like 
the whisper of a level sea. There was the 
revolver and the red light, . . . and the voice 
of some one scaring something away, exactly as 
had fallen somewhere before — probably in a 
past life. Dick waited for what should happen 
afterward. Something seemed to crack inside 
his head, and for an instant he stood in the 
dark — a darkness that stung. He fired at ran- 
dom, and the bullet went out across the desert 
as he muttered, “Spoilt my aim. There aren’t 
any more cartridges. We shall have to run 


32 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


home." He put his hand to his head and 
brought it away covered with blood. 

"Old man, you’re cut rather badly," said 
Torpenhow. "I owe you something for this 
business. Thanks. Stand up! I say, you 
can’t be ill here. ’’ 

Dick had fallen stiffly on Torpenhow’s shoul- 
der, and was muttering sometliing about aim- 
ing low and to the left. Then he sank to the 
ground and was silent. Torpenhow dragged 
him off to a doctor and sat down to work up 
his account of what he was pleased to call "a 
sanguinary battle, in which our arms had 
acquitted themselves," etc. 

All that night, when the troops were en- 
camped by the whale-boats, a black figure 
danced in the strong moonlight on the sand- 
bar and shouted that Khartoum the accursed 
one was dead, — was dead, — was dead, —that 
two steamers were rock-staked on the Nile out- 
side the city, and that of all their crews there 
remained not one ; and Khartoum was dead, 
— was dead, — was dead! 

But Torpenhow took no heed. He was 
watching Dick, who was calling aloud to the 
restless Nile for Maisie, — and again Maisie! 

"Behold a phenomenon," said Torpenhow, 
rearranging the blanket. "Here is a man, 
presumably human, who mentions the name of 
one woman only. And I’ve seen a good deal 
of delirium, too. — Dick, here’s some fizzy 
drink." 

"Thank you, Maisie," said Dick. 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


33 


CHAPTER III. 

So he thinks he shall take to the sea again 
For one more cruise with his buccaneers, 

To singe the beard of the King of Spain, 

And capture another dean of Jaen 
And sell him in Algiers. 

—A Dutch Picture. 

The Soudan campaign and Dick’s broken 
head had been some months ended and mend- 
ed, and the Central Southern Syndicate had 
paid Dick a certain sum on account for work 
done, which work they were careful to assure 
him was not altogether up to their standard. 
Dick heaved the letter into the Nile at Cairo, 
cashed the draft in the same town, and bade a 
warm farewell to Torpenhow at the station. 

“I am going to lie up for a while and rest,” 
said Torpenhow. ‘T don’t know where I shall 
live in London, but if God brings us to meet, 
we shall meet. Are you staying here on the 
off chance of another row? There will be none 
till the Southern Soudan is reoccupied by our 
troops. Mark that. Good-by; bless you; come 
back when your money’s spent; and give me 
your address. ” 

Dick loitered in Cairo, Alexandria, Ismailia, 
and Port Said — especially Port Said. There 
is iniquity in many parts of the world and 
vice in all, but the concentrated essence of all 

3 Light that Fail ed 


34 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


the iniquities and all the vices in all the con- 
tinents finds itself at Port Said. And through 
the heart of that sand-bordered hell, where the 
mirage flickers all day long above the Bitter 
Lakes, move, if you will only wait, most of the 
men and women you have known in this life. 
Dick established himself in quarters more riot- 
ous than respectable. He spent his evenings 
on the quay, and boarded many ships, and 
saw very many friends — gracious English- 
women witli whom he had talked not too 
wisely in the veranda of Shepheard’s Hotel, 
hurrying war correspondents, skippers of the 
contract troop-ships employed in the campaign, 
army officers by the score, and others of less 
reputable trades. Fie had choice of all the 
races of the East and West for studies, and 
the advantage of seeing his subjects under the 
influence of strong excitement, at the gaming- 
table, saloons, dancing-halls, and elsewhere. 
For recreation there was the straight vista of 
the canal, the blazing sands, the procession 
of shipping, and the white hospitals where the 
English soldiers lay. Dick strove to pen down 
in black and white and color all that Provi- 
dence sent him, and when that supply was 
ended sought about for fresh material. It 
was a fascinating employment, but it ran away 
with his money, and he had drawn in advance 
the hundred and twenty pounds to which he 
was entitled yearly. “Now I shall have to 
work and starve!” thought he, and was ad- 
dressing himself to this new fate, when a mys- 
terious telegram arrived from Torpenhow in 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


35 


England, which said, “Come back, quick; you 
have caught on. Come.” A large smile over- 
spread his face. “So soon! that’s good hear- 
ing,” said he to himself. “There will be an 
orgy to-night. ITl stand or fall by my luck. 
’Faith, it’s time it came!” He deposited 
half of his funds in the hands of his well- 
known friends. Monsieur and Madame Binat, 
and ordered himself a Zanzibar dance of the 
finest. Monsieur Binat was shaking with 
drink, but Madame smiled sympathetically. 

“Monsieur needs a chair, of course, and, of 
course. Monsieur will sketch. Monsieur amuses 
himself strangely.” 

Binat raised a blue-white face from a cot in 
the inner room. “I understand,” he quavered. 
“We all know Monsieur. Monsieur is an artist, 
as I have been.” Dick nodded. “In the 
end,” said Binat, with gravity, “Monsieur will 
descend alive into hell, as I have descended.” 
And he laughed. 

“You must come to the dance, too,” said 
Dick; “I shall want you.” 

“For my face? I knew it would be so. For 
my face? My God! and for my degradation so 
tremendous!" I will not. Take him away. 
He is a devil. Or at least do thou. Celeste, 
demand of him more.” The excellent Binat 
began to kick and scream. 

“All things are for sale in Port Said,” said 
Madame. “If my husband comes it will be so 
much more. Eh, ’ow you call — ’alf a sov- 
ereign.” 

The money was paid, and the mad dance 


36 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


came off that night in a walled court«yard at 
the back of Madame Binat’s house. The lady 
herself, in faded mauve silk always about to 
slide from her yellow shoulders, played the 
piano, and to the tin-pot music of a Western 
waltz the naked Zanzibari girls danced furi- 
ously by the light of kerosene lamps. Binat 
sat upon a chair and stared with eyes that saw 
nothing, till the whirl of the dance and the 
clang of the rattling piano stole into the drink 
that took the place of blood in his veins, and 
his face glistened. Dick took him by the chin 
brutally and turned that face to the light. 
Madame Binat looked over her shoulder and 
smiled with many teeth. Dick leaned against 
the wall and sketched for an hour, till the ker- 
osene lamps began to smell, and the girls 
threw themselves on the hard-beaten ground. 
Then he shut his book with a snap and moved 
away, Binat plucking feebly at his elbow. 
“Show me,” he whimpered. “I, too, was once 
an artist, even I!” Dick showed him the 
rough sketch. “Am I that?” he screamed. 
“Will you take that away with you and show 
airthe world that it is I — Binat?” He moaned 
and wept. 

“Monsieur has paid for all,” said Madame. 
“To the pleasure of seeing Monsieur again.” 

The court-yard gate shut, and Dick hurried 
up the sandy street to the nearest gambling- 
hell, where he was well known. “If the luck 
holds, it’s an omen; if I lose, I must stay 
here.” He placed his money picturesquely 
about the board, hardly daring to look at what 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


37 


he did. The luck held. Three turns of the 
wheel left him richer by twenty pounds, and 
he went down to the shipping to make friends 
with the captain of a cargo-steamer, who 
landed him in London with fewer pounds in 
his pocket than he cared to think about. 

A thin gray fog hung over the city, and the 
streets were very cold; for summer was in 
England. 

“It’s a cheerful wilderness, and it hasn’t 
the knack of altering much,” Dick thought, as 
he tramped from the Docks westward. “Now, 
what must I do?” 

The packed houses gave no answer. Dick 
looked down the long lightless streets and at 
the appalling rush of traffic. “Oh, you rabbit- 
hutches!” said he, addressing a row of highly 
respectable semi-detached residences. “Do 
you know what you’ve got to do later on? 
You have to supply me with men-servants and 
maid-servants,” — here he smacked his lips, — 
“and the peculiar treasure of kings. Mean- 
time, I’ll get clothes and boots, and presently 
I will return and trample on you.” He 
stepped forward energetically; he saw that 
one of his shoes was burst at the side. As he 
stooped to make investigations, a man jostled 
him into the gutter. “All right,” he said. 
“That’s another nick in the score. I’ll jostle 
you later on. ” 

Good clothes and boots are not cheap, and 
Dick left his last shop with the certainty that 
he would be respectably arrayed for a time. 


38 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


but with only fifty shillings in his pocket. 
He returned to streets by the Docks, and lodged 
himself in one room, where the sheets on the 
bed were almost audibly marked in case of 
theft, and where nobody seemed to go to bed 
at all. When his clothes arrived he sought the 
Central Southern Syndicate for Torpenhow’s 
address, and got it, with the intimation that 
there was still some money owing to him. 

“How much?” said Dick, as one who habit- 
ually dealt in millions. 

“Between thirty and forty pounds. If it 
would be any convenience to you, of course, 
we could let you have it at once; but we 
usually settle accounts monthly.” 

“If I show that I want anything now, I’m 
lost,” he said to himself. “All I need I’ll 
take later on.” Then, aloud, “It’s hardly 
worth while; and I’m going into the country 
for a month, too. Wait till I come back, and 
I’ll see about it ” 

“But we trust, Mr. Heldar, that you do not 
intend to sever your connection with us?” 

Dick’s business in life was the study of faces, 
and he watched the speaker keenly. “That 
man means something,” he said. “I’ll do no 
business till I’ve seen Torpenhow. There’s a 
big deal coming.” So he departed, making 
no promises, to his one little room by the 
Docks. And that day was the seventh of the 
month, and that month, he reckoned with 
awful distinctness, had thirty-one days in it! 

It is not easy for a man of catholic tastes and 
healthy appetities to exist for twenty-four days 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


39 


on fifty shillings. Nor is it cheering to begin 
the experiment alone in all the loneliness of 
London. Dick paid seven shillings a week for 
his lodging, which left him rather less than a 
shilling a day for food and drink. Naturally, 
his first purchase was of the materials of his 
craft; he had been without them too long. 
Half a day's investigation and comparison 
brought him to the conclusion that sausages 
and mashed potatoes, twopence a plate, were 
the best food. Now, sausages once or twice a 
week for breakfast are not unpleasant. As 
lunch; even with mashed potatoes, they become 
monotonous. As dinner they are impertinent. 
At the end of three days Dick loathed sau- 
sages, and, going forth, pawned his watch to 
revel on sheep’s head, which is not as cheap as 
it looks, owing to the bones and the gravy. 
Then he returned to sausages and mashed 
potatoes. Then he confined himself entirely 
to mashed potatoes for a day, and was unhappy 
because of pain in his inside. Then he pawned 
his waistcoat and his tie, and thought regret- 
fully of money thrown away in times past. 
There are few things more edifying unto Art 
than the actual belly-pinch of hunger, and 
Dick in his few walks abroad — he did not care 
for exercise ; it raised desires that could not be 
satisfied — found himself dividing mankind into 
two classes — those who looked as if they might 
give him something to eat, and those who 
looked otherwise. “I never knew what I had 
to learn about the human face before,” he 
thought; and, as a reward for his humility,* 


40 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


Providence caused a cab-driver at a sausage- 
shop where Dick fed that night to leave half 
eaten a great chunk of bread. Dick took it — 
would have fought all the world for its posses- 
sion, — and it cheered him. 

The month dragged through at last, and, 
fairly prancing with impatience, he went to 
draw his money. Then he hastened to Tor- 
penhow’s address and smelt the smell of cook- 
ing meat along the corridors of the chambers. 
Torpenhow was on the top floor, and ,Dick 
burst into his room, to be received with a hug 
which nearly cracked his ribs, as Torpenhow 
dragged him to the light and spoke of twenty 
different things in the same breath. 

“But you’re looking tucked up,” he con- 
cluded. 

“Got anything to eat?” said Dick, his eye 
roaming round the room. 

“I shall be having breakfast in a minute. 
What do you say to sausages?” 

“No, anything but sausages. Torp, I’ve 
been starving on that accursed horse-flesh for 
thirty days and thirty nights.” 

“Now, what lunacy has been your latest?” 

Dick spoke of the last few weeks with un- 
bridled speech. Then he opened his coat: 
there was no waistcoat below. “I ran it fine, 
awfully fine, but I’ve just scraped through.” 

“You haven’t much sense, but you’ve got 
a backbone, anyhow. Eat and talk after- 
ward.” Dick fell upon eggs and bacon and 
gorged till he could gorge no more. Tor- 
penhow handed him a filled pipe, and he 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


41 


smoked as men smoke who for three weeks have 
been deprived of good tobacco. 

“Ouf !” said he. “That’s heavenly! Well?” 

“Why in the world didn’t you come to me?” 

“Couldn’t: I owe you too much already, old 
man. Besides, I have a sort of superstition 
that this temporary starvation — that’s what 
it was, and it hurt — would bring me more luck 
later. It’s over and done with now, and none 
of the syndicate know how hard-up I was. 
Fire away. What’s the exact state of affairs 
as regards myself?’’ 

“You had*my wire? You’ve caught on here. 
People like your work immensely. I don’t 
know why, but they do. They say you have a 
fresh touch and a new way of drawing things. 
And, because they’re chiefly home-bred Eng- 
lish, they say you have insight. You’re 
wanted by half a dozen papers; you’re wanted 
to illustrate books.’’ 

Dick grunted scornfully. 

“You’re wanted to work up your smaller 
sketches and sell them to the dealers. They 
seem to think the money sunk in you is a good 
investment. Good Lord! who can account 
for the fathomless folly of the public?’’ 

“They’re a remarkably sensible people.’’ 

“They are subject to fits, if that’s what you 
mean ; and you happen to be the object of the 
latest fit among those who are interested in 
what they call Art. Just now you’re a fash- 
ion, a phenomenon, or whatever you please. 
I appear to be the only person who knew any- 
thing about you here, and I have been showing 

4 Light that Failed 


42 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


the most useful men a few of the sketches you 
gave me from time to time. Those coming 
after your work on the Central Southern Syn- 
dicate appear to have done your business. 
You’re in luck. ” 

“Huh! call it luck! do call it luck! When a 
man has been kicking about the world like a 
dog, waiting for it to come! I’ll luck ’em 
later on. I want a place to work in first. ’’ 

“Come here,” said Torpenhow, crossing the 
landing. “This place is a big box-room really, 
but it will do for you. There’s your skylight, 
or your north light, or whatever window you 
call it, and plenty of room to slash about in, 
and a bedroom beyond. What more do you 
want?” 

“Good enough,’’ said Dick, looking round 
the large room that took up a third of a top 
story in the rickety chambers overlooking 
the Thames. A pale-yellow sun shone through 
the skylight and showed the much dirt of the 
place. Three steps led from the door to the 
landing, and three more to Torpenhow’s room. 
The well of the staircase disappeared into dark- 
ness, pricked by tiny gas-jets, and there were 
sounds of men talking and doors slamming 
seven flights below, in the warm gloom. 

“Do they give you a free hand hore?’’ said 
Dick, cautiously. He was Ishmael enough to 
know the value of liberty. 

“Anything you like: latch-keys and license 
unlimited. We are permanent tenants for 
the most part herein ’Tisn’t a place I would 
recommend for a Young Men’s Christian 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


43 


Association, but it will serve. I took these 
rooms for you when I wired.” 

“You’re a great deal too kind, old man.” 

“You didn’t suppose you were going away 
from me, did you?” Torpenhow put his hand 
on Dick’s shoulder, and the two walked up and 
down the room, henceforward' to be called the 
studio, in sweet and silent communion. They 
heard rapping at Torpenhow *s door. “That’s 
some ruffian come up for a drink,” said Tor- 
penhow; and he raised his voice cheerily. 
There entered no one more ruffianly than a 
portly middle-aged gentleman in a satin-faced 
frock-coat. His lips were parted and pale, and 
there were deep pouches under his eyes. 

“Weak heart,” said Dick to himself, and, 
as he shook hands, “very weak heart. His 
pulse is shaking his fingers.” 

The man introduced himself as the head of 
the Central Southern Syndicate and “one of 
the most ardent admirers of your work, Mr. 
Heldar. I assure you, in the name of the syn- 
dicate, that we are immensely indebted to you; 
and I trust, Mr. Heldar, you won’t forget that 
we were largely instrumental in bringing you 
before the public.” He panted because of the 
seven flights of stairs. 

Dick glanced at Torpenhow, whose left eye- 
lid lay for a moment dead on his cheek. 

“I shan’t forget,” said Dick, every instinct 
of defense roused in him. “You’ve paid me 
so well that I couldn’t, you know. By the 
way, when I am settled in this place I should 
like to send and get my sketches. There 


44 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


miist be nearly a hundred and fifty of them 
with you. ” 

“That is er — is what I came to speak about. 
I fear we can’t allow it exactly, Mr. Heldar. 
In the absence of any specified agreement, the 
sketches are our property, of course.” 

“Do you mean to say that you are going 
to keep them?” 

“Yes; and we hope to have you help, on 
your own terms, Mr. Heldar, to assist us in 
arranging a little exhibition, which backed by 
our name, and the influence we naturally 
command among the press, should be of ma- 
terial service to you. Sketches such as 
yours ’ ’ 

“Belong to me. You engaged me by wire, 
you paid me the lowest rates you dared. You 
can’t mean to keep them! Good God alive, 
man, they’re all I’ve got in the world!” 

Torpenhow watched Dick’s face and whis- 
tled. 

Dick walked up and down, thinking. He 
saw the whole of his little stock in trade, the 
first weapon of his equipment, annexed at the 
outset of his campaign by an elderly gentle- 
man whose name Dick had not caught aright, 
who said that he represented a syndicate, 
which was a thing for which Dick had not the 
least reverence. The injustice of the pro- 
ceedings did not much move him ; he had seen 
the strong hand prevail too often in other 
places to be squeamish over the moral aspects 
of right and wrong. But he ardently desired 
the blood of the gentleman in the frock-coat. 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


45 


and when he spoke again it was with a 
strained sweetness that Torpenhow knew 
well for the beginning of strife. 

“Forgive me, sir, but you have no— no 
younger man who can arrange this business 
with me?” 

“I speak for the syndicate. I see no reason 
for a third party to ” 

“You will in a minute. Be good enough to 
give back my sketches.” 

The man stared blankly at Dick, and then 
at Torpenhow, who was leaning against the 
wall. He was not used to ex-employees who 
ordered him to be good enough to do things. 

“Yes, it is rather a cold-blooded steal,” said 
Torpenhow critically, “but I’m afraid, I am 
very much afraid, you’ve struck the wrong 
man. Be careful, Dick. Remember this isn’t 
the Soudan.” 

“Considering what services the syndicate 
have done you in putting your name before the 
world ” 

This was not a fortunate remark: it re- 
minded Dick of certain vagrant years lived out 
in loneliness and strife and unsatisfied desires. 
The memory did not contrast well with the 
prosperous gentleman who proposed to enjoy 
the fruit of those years. 

“I don’t know quite what to do with you,” 
began Dick, meditatively. “Of course you’re 
a thief, and you ought to be half killed, but 
in your case you’d probably die. I don’t 
want you dead on this floor, and, besides, it’s 
unlucky just as one’s moving in. Don’t hit, 


46 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


sir: you’ll only excite yourself.” He put one 
hand on the man’s forearm and ran the other 
down the plump body beneath the coat. ‘‘My 
goodness!” said he to Torpenhow, ‘‘and this 
gray oaf dares to be a thief. I have seen an 
Esneh camel-driver have the black hide taken 
off his body in strips for stealing half a pound 
of wet dates, and he was as tough as whipcord. 
This thing’s soft all over — like a woman.” 

There are few things more poignantly humil- 
iating than being handled by a man who does 
not intend to strike. The head of the syndi- 
cate began to breathe heavily. Dick walked 
round him, pawing him, as a cat paws a soft 
hearth-rug. Then he traced with his fore- 
finger the leaden pouches underneath the eyes, 
and shook his head. ‘‘You were going to steal 
my things, — mine, mine, mine! — you, who 
don’t know when you may die. Write a note 
to your office, — you say you’re the head of it, 

■ — and order them to give Torpenhow my 
sketches — every one of them. Wait a minute: 
your hand’s shaking. Now!” He thrust a 
pocket-book before him. The note was writ- 
ten. Torpenhow took it and departed without 
a word, while Dick walked round and round 
the spellbound captive, giving him such 
advice as he conceived best for the welfare of 
his soul. When Torpenhow returned with a 
gigantic portfolio, he heard Dick say, almost 
soothingly, “Now, I hope this will be a lesson 
to you; and if you worry me when I have 
settled down to work with any nonsense about 
actions for assault, believe me. I’ll catch you 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


47 


and manhandle you, and you’ll die. You 
haven’t very long to live, anyhow! Go! Imshi, 
Vootsak ^ — get out!" The man departed, stag- 
gering and dazed. Dick drew a long breath. 
"Phew! what a lawless lot these people are! 
The first thing a poor orphan meets is gang 
robbery, organized burglary! Think of the 
hideous blackness of that man’s mind! Are 
my sketches all right, Torp?" 

"Yes; one hundred and forty-seven of them. 
Well, I must say, Dick, you’ve begun well." 

"He was interfering with me. It only meant 
a fev/ pounds to him, but it was everything to 
me. I don’t think he’ll bring an action. I 
gave him some medical advice gratis about 
the state of his body. It was cheap at the 
little flurry it cost him. Now let’s look at my 
things. " 

Two minutes later Dick had thrown himself 
down on the floor and was deep in the portfo- 
lio, chuckling lovingly as he turned the draw- 
ings over and thought of the price at which 
they had been bought. 

The afternoon was well advanced when Tor- 
penhow came to the door and saw Dick danc- 
ing a wild saraband under the skylight. 

"I builded better than I knew, Torp," he 
said, without stopping the dance. "They’re 
good! They’re damned good! They’ll go 
like flame ! I shall have an exhibition of them 
on my own brazen hook. And that man would 
have cheated me out of it. Do you know that 
I’m sorry now that I didn’t actually hit him?" 

"Go out," said Torpenhow — "go out and 


48 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


pray to be delivered from the sin of arrogance, 
which you never will be. Bring your things 
up from whatever place you’re staying in, and 
we’ll try to make this barn a little more ship- 
shape. ” 

“And then — oh, then,” said Dick, still 
capering, “we will spoil the Egyptians!’’ 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


49 


CHAPTER IV. 

The wolf-cub at even lay hid in the corn. 

When the smoke of the cooking hung gray ; 

He knew where the doe made a couch for her fawn, 
And he looked to his strength for his prey. 

But the moon swept the smoke-wreaths away. 

And he turned from his meal in the villager’s close, 

And he bayed to the moon as she rose. 

— In Seonee. 

“Well, and how does success taste?” said 
Torpenhow, some three months later. He had 
just returned to chambers after a holiday in 
the country. 

“Good,” said Dick, as he sat licking his Ups 
before the easel in the studio. “I want more 
— heaps more. The lean years have passed, 
and I approve of these fat ones.” 

“Be careful, old man. That way lies bad 
work. ’ ’ 

Torpenhow was sprawling in a long chair 
with a small fox-terrier asleep on his chest, 
while Dick was preparing a canvas. A dais, 
a background, and a lay-figure were the only 
fixed objects in the place. , They rose from a 
wreck of oddments that began with felt-covered 
water-bottles, belts, and regimental badges 
and ended with a small bale of second-hand 
uniforms and a stand of mixed arms. The 
mark of muddy feet on the dais showed that a 

4 


50 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


military model had just gone away. The wat- 
ery autumn sunlight was failing, and shadows 
sat in the corners of the studio. 

“Yes,” said Dick, deliberately, “I like the 
power; I lie the fun; I like the fuss; and, 
above all, I like the money. I almost like the 
people who make the fuss and pay the money. 
Almost. But they’re a queer gang — an amaz- 
ingly queer gang!” 

“They have been good enough to you, at 
any rate. That tin- pot exhibition of your 
sketches must have paid. Did you see that 
the papers called it the ‘Wild Work Show?’ ” 

“Never mind. I sold every shred of canvas 
I wanted to; and, on my word, I believe it was 
because they believed 1 was a self-taught flag- 
stone artist. I should have got better prices if 
I had worked my things on wool or scratched 
them on camel-bone instead of using mere 
black and white and color. Verily, they are a 
queer gang, these people. Limited isn’t the 
word to describe ’em. I met a fellow the other 
day who told me that it was impossible that 
shadows on white sand should be blue, — ultra- 
marine, — as they are. I found out, later, that 
that man had been as far as Brighton beach ; 
but he knew all about Art, confound him. He 
gave me a lecture on it, and recommended me 
to go to school to learn technique. I wonder 
what old Kami would have said to that?” 

“When were you under Kami, man of extra- 
ordinary beginnings?” 

“I studied with him for two years in Paris. 
He taught by personal magnetism. All he 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


51 


ever said was, ‘Continuez, mes enfants,’ and 
you had to make the best you could of that. 
He had a divine touch, and he knew something” 
about color. Kami used to dream color. I 
swear he could never have seen the genuine 
article; but he evolved it; and it was good. ’ ' 

“Recollect some of those views in the Sou- 
dan?" said Torpenhow, with a provoking 
drawl. 

Dick squirmed in his place. “Don’t! It 
makes me want to get out there again. What 
color that was! Opal and umber and amber 
and claret and brick- red and sulphur — cocka- 
too-crest sulphur — against brown, with a nig- 
ger-black rock sticking up in the middle of it 
all, and a decorative frieze of camels festoon- 
ing in front of a pure pale-turquoise sky." 
He began to walk up and down. “And yet, 
you know, if you try to give these people the 
thing as God gave it, keyed down to their com- 
prehension and according to the powers He 
has given you " 

“Modest man! Goon." 

“Half a dozen epicene young pagans who 
haven’t even been to Algiers will tell you, 
first, that your notion is borrowed, and, sec- 
ondly, that it isn’t Art." 

“This comes of my leaving town for a 
month. Dickie, you’ve been promenading 
among the toy - shops and hearing people 
talk." 

“I couldn’t help it," said Dick, penitently. 
“You weren’t here, and it was lonely these 
long evenings. A man can’t work forever. ’’ 


52 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“A man might have gone to a pub and got 
decently drunk.” 

“I wish I had; but I forgathered with some 
men of sorts. They said they were artists, 
and I knew some of them could draw — but they 
wouldn’t draw. They gave me tea, — tea at 
five in the afternoon ! — and talked about Art 
and the state of their souls. As if their souls 
mattered. I’ve heard more about Art and seen 
less of her in the last six months than in the 
whole of my life. Do you remember Cassa- 
vetti, who worked for some Continental syndi- 
cate, out with the desert column? He was a 
regular Christmas tree of contraptions when 
he took the field in full fig, with his water- 
bottle, lanyard, revolver, writing-case, house- 
wife, gig-lamps, and the Lord knows what all. 
He used to fiddle about with ’em and show us 
how they worked; but he never seemed to do 
much except fudge his reports from the Nil- 
ghai. See?” 

‘‘Dear old Nilghai! He’s in town, fatter 
than ever. He ought to be up here this even- 
ing. I see the comparison perfectly. You 
should have kept clear of all that man milli- 
nery. Serves you right; and I hope it will 
unsettle your mind.” 

“It won’t. It has taught me what Art — 
holy, sacred Art — means. ’ ’ 

‘‘You’ve learned something while I’ve been 
away. What is Art?” 

‘‘Give ’em what they know, and when you’ve 
done it once do it again.” Dick dragged for- 
ward a canvas laid face to the wall. ‘‘Here’s 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


63 


a sample of real Art. It’s going to be a fac- 
simile reproduction for a weekly. I called it 
‘His Last Shot.’ It’s worked up from the lit- 
tle water-color I made outside El Maghrib. 
Well, I lured my model, a beautiful rifleman, 
up here with drink; I drored him, and re- 
drored him, and I tredrored him, and I made 
him a flushed, disheveled, bedeviled scalawag, 
with his helmet at the back of his head, and 
the living fear of death in his eye, and the 
blood oozing out of a cut over his ankle-bone. 
He wasn’t pretty, but he was all soldier and 
very much man. ” 

“Once more, modest child!’’ 

Dick laughed. “Well, it’s only to you I’m 
talking. I did him just as well as I knew how, 
making allowance for the slickness of oils. 
Then the art-manager of that abandoned 
paper said that his subscribers wouldn’t like it. 
It was brutal and coarse and violent — man be- 
ing naturally gentle when he’s fighting for his 
life. They wanted something more restful, 
with a little more color, I could have said a 
good deal, but you might as well talk to a 
sheep as an art-manager. I took my ‘Last 
Shot’ back. Behold the result! I put him 
into a lovely red coat without a speck on it. 
That is Art. I polished his boots — observe 
the high light on the toe. That is Art. I 
cleaned his rifle, — rifles are alwa3^s clean on 
service, — because that is Art. I pipe-clayed 
his helmet — pipe-clay is always used on active 
service, and is indispensable to Art. I shaved 
his chin, I washed his hands, and gave him an 


54 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


air of fatted peace. Result, military tailor’s 
pattern-plate. Price, thank Heaven, twice as 
much as for the first sketch, which was moder- 
ately decent. ” 

“And do you suppose you’re going to give 
that thing out as your work?" 

“Why not? I did it. Alone I did it, in the 
interests of sacred, home-bred Art and Dick- 
enson’s Weekly. ’* 

Torpenhow smoked in silence for a while. 
Then came the verdict, delivered from rolling 
clouds: “If you were only a mass of blathering 
vanity, Dick, I wouldn’t mind — Fd let you go 
to the deuce on your own mahl-stick; but 
when I consider what you are to me, and when 
I find that to vanity you add the twopenny- 
halfpenny pique of a twelve-year-old girl, then 
I bestir myself in your behalf. Thus!” 

The canvas ripped as Torpenhow’s booted 
foot shot through it, and the terrier jumped 
down, thinking rats were about. 

“If you have any bad language to use, use 
it. You have not. I continue. You are an 
idiot, because no man born of woman is strong 
enough to take liberties with his public, even 
though they be — which they ain’t — all you say 
they are. ’ ’ 

“But they don’t know any better. What can 
you expect from creatures born and bred in 
this light?" Dick pointed to the yellow fog. 
“If they want furniture-polish, let them have 
furniture-polish, so long as they pay for it. 
They are only men and women. You talk as 
though they were gods. ’ ’ 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


55 


“That sounds very fine, but it has nothing 
to do with the case. They are the people you 
have to work for, whether you like it or not. 
They are your masters. Don’t be deceived, 
Dickie. You aren’t strong enough to trifle 
with them — or with yourself, which is more 
important. Moreover, — come back, Binkie: 
that red daub isn’t going anywhere, — unless 
you take precious good care, you will fall under 
the damnation of the check-book, and that’s 
worse than dead. You will get drunk — you’re 
half drunk already — on easily acquired money. 
For that money and your own infernal vanity 
you are willing to. deliberately turn out bad 
work. You’ll do quite enough bad work with- 
out knowing it. And, Dickie, as I love you 
and as I know you love me, I am not going to 
let you cut off your nose to spite your face for 
all the gold in England. That’s settled. Now 
swear. ” 

“Don’t know,’’ said Dick. “I’ve been try- 
ing to make myself angry, but I can’t, you’re 
so abominably reasonable. There will be a 
row on Dickenson’s Weekly, I fancy.’’ 

“Why the Dickenson do you want to work 
on a weekly paper? It’s slow bleeding of 
power. ’’ 

“It brings in the very desirable dollars,’’ 
said Dick, his hands in his pockets. 

Torpenhow watched him with large con- 
tempt. “Why, I thought it was a man!’’ 
said he. “It’s a child. ’’ 

“No, it isn’t,’’ said Dick, wheeling quickly. 
“You’ve no notion what the certainty of cash 


56 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


means to a man who has always wanted it 
badly. Nothing will pay me for some of my 
life’s joys; on that Chinese pig-boat, for 
instance, when we ate bread and jam for every 
meal, because Ho-Wang wouldn’t allow us any- 
thing better, and it all tasted of pig — Chinese 
pig. I’ve worked for this, I’ve sweated and 
I’ve starved for this, line on line and month 
after month. And now I’ve got it I am going 
to make the most of it while it lasts. Let them 
pay. They’ve no knowledge.” 

“What does Your Majesty please to want? 
You can’t smoke more than you do; you won’t 
drink; you’re a gross feeder; and you dress in 
the dark, by the look of you. You wouldn’t 
keep a horse the other day when I suggested, 
because, you said, it might fall lame, and 
whenever you cross the street you take a hand- 
som. Even you are not foolish enough to 
suppose that theaters and all the live things 
you can buy thereabouts mean Life. What 
earthly need have you for money?’’ 

“It’s there, bless it’s golden heart” said Dick. 
“It’s there all the time. Providence has sent 
me nuts while I have teeth to crack ’em with. 
I haven’t yet found the nut I wish to crack, 
but I’m keeping my teeth filed. Perhaps some 
day you and I will go for a walk round the 
wide earth. ” 

“With no work to do, nobody to worry us, 
and nobody to compete with? You would be 
unfit to speak to in a week. Besides, I 
shouldn’t go. I don’t care to profit by the 
price of a man’s soul, — for that’s what it would 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


57 


mean. Dick, it’s no use arguing. You’re a 
fool. ’ ’ 

“Don’t see it. When I was on that Chinese 
pig-boat, our captain got enormous credit for 
saving about twenty-five thousand very sea- 
sick little pigs, when our old tramp of a 
steamer fell foul of a timber-junk. Now, tak- 
ing those pigs as a parallel ’’ 

“Oh, confound your parallels! Whenever I 
try to improve your soul, you always drag in 
some irrelevant anecdote from your shady past. 
Pigs aren’t the British public; credit on the 
high seas isn’t credit here; and self-respect is 
self-respect all the world over. Go out for a 
walk and try to catch some self-respect. And, 
I say, if the Nilghai comes up this evening can 
I show him your diggings?” 

“Surely. You’ll be asking whether you 
must knock at my door next.” And Dick 
departed, to take counsel with himself in the 
rapidly-gathering London fog. 

Half an hour after he had left, the Nilghai 
labored up the staircase. He was the chiefest, 
as he was the hugest, of the war correspond- 
ents, and his experiences dated from the birth 
of the needle-gun. Saving only his ally, 
Keneu the Great War Eagle, there was no man 
mightier in the craft than he, and he always 
opened his conversation with the news that 
there would be trouble in the Balkans in the 
spring. Torpenhow laughed as he entered. 

“Never mind the trouble in the Balkans. 
Those little states are always screeching. 
You’ve heard about Dick's luck?” 


58 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“Yes; he has been called up to notoriety, 
hasn’t he? I hope you keep him properly 
humble. He wants suppressing from time to 
time.” 

“He does. He’s beginning to take liberties 
with what he thinks is his reputation.” 

“Already! By Jove, he has cheek ! I don’t 
know about his reputation, but he’ll come a 
cropper if he tries that sort of thing. ” 

“So I told him. I don’t think he believes 
it.” 

“They never do when they first start off. 
What’s that wreck on the ground there?” 

“Specimen of his latest impertinence.” 
Torpenhow thrust the torn edges of the canvas 
together and showed the well-groomed picture 
to the Nilghai, who looked at it for a moment 
and whistled. 

“It’s a chromo, ” said he, — “chromo-lithole- 
omargarine fake! What possessed him to do 
it? And yet how thoroughly he has caught the 
note that catches a public who think with their 
boots and read with their elbows ! The cold- 
blooded insolence of the work almost saves it ; 
but he mustn’t go on with this. Hasn’t he 
been praised and cockered up too much? You 
know these people here have no sense of pro- 
portion. They’ll call him a second Detaille 
and a third-hand Meissonier while his fashion 
lasts. It’s windy diet for a colt. ” 

“I don’t think it affects Dick much. You 
might as well call a young wolf a lion and 
expect him to take the compliment in exchange 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


69 


for a shin-bone. Dick’s soul is in the bank. 
He’s working for cash.” 

‘‘Now he has thrown up war-work, I sup- 
pose he doesn’t see that the obligations of the 
service are just the same, only the proprietors 
are changed. ” 

“How should he know? He thinks he is his 
own master. ” 

“Does he? I could undeceive him for his 
good, if there’s any virtue in print. He wants 
the whip-lash.” 

‘‘Lay it on with science, then. I’d flay him 
myself, but I like him too much.” 

‘‘I’ve no scruples. He had the audacity to 
try to cut me out with a woman at Cairo once. 
I forgot that, but I remember now.” 

‘‘Did he cut you out?” 

‘‘You’ll see when I have dealt with him. 
But, after all, what’s the good? Leave him 
alone and he’ll come home, if he has any stuff 
in him, dragging or wagging his tail behind 
him. There’s more in a week of life than in 
a lively weekly. None the less I’ll slate him. 
I’ll slate him ponderously in the Cataclysm.’^ 

‘‘Good luck to you! but I fancy nothing short 
of a crow-bar would make Dick wince. His 
soul seems to have been fired before we came 
across him. He’s intensely suspicious and 
utterly lawless. ” 

‘‘Matter of temper,” said the Nilghai. ‘‘It’s 
the same with horses. Some you wallop and 
they work, some you wallop and they jib, and 
some you wallop and they go out for a walk 
with their hands in their pockets.” 


60 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“That’s exactly what Dick has done, ’’ said 
Torpenhow. “Wait till he comes back. In 
the mean time, you can begin your slating 
here. I’ll show you some of the last and worst 
work in his studio.” 

Dick had instinctively sought running water 
for a comfort to his mood of mind. He was 
leaning over the Embankment wall, watching 
the rush of the Thames through the arches of 
Westminster Bridge. He began by thinking 
of Torpenhow’s advice, but, as of custom, lost 
himself in the study of the faces flocking by. 
Some had death written on their features, 
and Dick marveled that they could laugh. 
Others, clumsy and coarse-built for the most 
part, were alight with love ; others were merely 
drawn and lined with work; but there was 
something, Dick knew, to be made out of them 
all. The poor at least should suffer that he 
might learn, and the rich should pay for the 
output of his learning. Thus his credit in the 
world and his cash balance at the bank would 
be increased. So much the better for him. 
He had suffered. Now he would take toll of 
the ills of others. 

The fog was driven apart for a moment, and 
the sun shone, a blood-red wafer, on the water. 
Dick watched the spot till he heard the voice 
of the tide between the piers die down like the 
wash of the sea at low tide. A girl, hard 
pressed by her lover, shouted shamelessly, 
“Ah, get away, you beast!” and a shift of the 
same wind that had opened the fog drove 
across Dick’s face the black smoke of a river 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


61 


Steamer at her berth below the wall. He was 
blinded for the moment, then spun round and 
found himself face to face with — Maisie. 

There was no mistaking. The years had 
turned the child to a woman, but they had not 
altered the dark gray eyes, the thin scarlet 
lips, or the firmly modeled mouth and chin ; 
and, that all should be as it was of old, she 
wore a closely fitting gray dress. 

Since the human soul is finite and not in the 
least under its own command, Dick, advancing, 
said, “Halloo!” after the manner of school- 
boys, and Maisie answered, “Oh, Dick, is that 
you?” Then, against his will, and before the 
brain, newly released from considerations of 
the cash balance, had time to dictate to the 
nerves, every pulse of Dick’s body throbbed 
furiously and his palate dried in his mouth. 
The fog shut down again, and Maisie’s face 
was pearl-white through it. No word was 
spoken, but Dick fell into step at her side, and 
the two paced the Embankment together, 
keeping the step as perfectly as in their after- 
noon excursions to the mud-flats. Then Dick, 
a. little hoarsely: 

“What has happened to Amomma?” 

“He died, Dick. Not cartridges; over-eat- 
ing. He was always greedy. Isn’t it funny?” 

“Yes. No. Do you mean Amomma?” 

“Ye — es. No. This. Where have you 
come from?” 

“Over there.” Dick pointed eastward 
through the fog. “And you?” 


62 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“Oh, I’m in the north — the black north, 
across all the Park. I am very busy. ’ ’ 

“What do you do?” 

“I paint a great deal. That’s all I have to 
do. ” 

“Why, what’s happened? You had three 
hundred a j^ear. ” 

“I have that still. I am painting; that’s 
all.” 

“Are you alone, then?” 

“There’s a girl living with me. Don’t walk 
so fast, Dick; you’re out of step.” 

“Then you noticed it, too?” 

“Of course, I did. You’re always out of 
step.” 

“So I am. I’m sorry. You went on with 
the painting!” 

“Of course. I said I should. I was at the 
Slade, then at Merton’s in St. John’s Wood, 
the big studio, then I pepper-potted, — I mean 
I went to the National — and now I’m work- 
ing under Kami. ” 

“But Kami is in Paris, surely?” 

“No; he has his teaching-studio at Vitry- 
sur-Marne. I work v/ith him in the summer, 
and I live in London in the winter. I’m a 
householder.” 

“Do you sell much?” 

“Now and again, but not often. There is my 
bus, I must take it or lose half an hour. 
Good-by, Dick.” 

“Good-by, Maisie. Won’t you tell me 
where you live? I must see you again, and 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


63 


perhaps I could help you. I paint a little my- 
self.” 

‘‘I may be in the Park to-morrow, if there 
is no working light. I walk from the Marble 
Arch down and back again; that is my little 
excursion. But, of course, I shall see you 
again.” She stepped into the omnibus and 
was swallowed up by the fog. 

“Well — I — am — damned!” exclaimed Dick, 
and returned to the chambers. 

Torpenhow and the Nilghai found him sit- 
ting on the steps to the studio door, repeating 
the phrase with awful gravity. 

“You’ll be more damned when I’ve done 
with you,” said the Nilghai, upheaving his 
bulk from behind Torpenhow’s shoulder, and 
waving a sheaf of half-dry manuscript. “Dick, 
it is of common report that you are suffering 
from swelled head.” 

“Halloo, Nilghai. Back again? How are 
the Balkans and all the little Balkans? One 
side of your face is out of drawing, as usual.” 

“Never mind that. I am commissioned to 
smite you in print. Torpenhow refuses from 
false delicacy. I’ve been overhauling the pot- 
boilers in your studio. They are simply dis- 
graceful. ” 

“Oho! that’s it, is it? If you think you can 
slate me, you’re wrong. You can only de- 
scribe, and you need as much room to turn in, 
on paper, as a P. & O. cargo-boat. But con- 
tinue, and be swift. I’m going to bed.” 

“H’m! h’m! h’m! The first part only deals 
with your pictures. Here’s the peroration: 


64 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


‘For work done without conviction, for power 
wasted on trivialities, for labor expended with 
levity for the deliberate purpose of winning* 
the easy applause of a fashion-driven pub- 
lic’ ” 

“That’s ‘His Last Shot,’ second edition. 
Goon.’’ 

“ ‘public, there remains but one end, — 

the oblivion that is preceded by toleration and 
cenotaphed with contempt. From that fate 
Mr. Heldar has yet to prove himself out of 
danger.’ ” 

“Wow — wow — wow — wow — wow!” said 
Dick, profanely. “It’s a clumsy ending and 
vile journalese, but it’s quite true. And yet,” 
— he sprang to his feet and snatched at the 
manuscript, — “you scarred, deboshed, battered 
old gladiator! you’re sent out when a war be- 
gins, to minister to the blind brutal British 
public’s bestial thirst for blood. They have 
no arenas now, but they must have special 
correspondents. You’re a fat gladiator who 
comes up through a trap-door and talks of 
what he’s seen. You stand on precisely the 
same level as an energetic bishop, an affable 
actress, a devastating cyclone, or — mine own 
sweet self. And you presume to lecture me 
about my work. Nilghai, if it were worth 
while. I’d caricature you in four papers!” 

The Nilghai winced. He had not thought 
of this. 

“As it is, I shall take this stuff and tear it 
small — so!’’ The manuscript fluttered in slips 
down the dark well of the staircase. “Go home, 



‘“Well, and how does success taste?’ ’’—Page 49. 

Tlic l,ight Tluit KailcU. 



If V 





^ ;4 



'ftfr- 




* % 


•* V* » 






.■•‘i 


PSS^llLi -. - 

^ I,-. - -«.•' ‘ ■ '2 

■•'- id S^L ^ ^ V- ^ *> « _• *» nW 

-* ' ■. •.'T 

■>:-sc^»’‘-.- 

“ *- ■ ^. ' ' >‘ ■ ■- • . ' • .- - * * ’ K' - ■-< 

•> --r. 

" ^ -- 




t: 


•'k 







THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


65 


Nilghai,” said Dick, “go home to your lonely 
little bed, and leave me in peace. I am about 
to turn in till to-morrow.” 

“Why, it isn’t seven yet!” said Torpenhow, 
with amazement. 

‘ ‘ It shall be two in the morning, if I choose, ’ ’ 
said Dick, backing to the studio door. “I go 
to grapple with a serious crisis, and I shan’t 
want any dinner.” 

The door shut and was locked. 

“What can you do with a man like that?” 
said the Nilghai. 

“Leave him alone. He’s mad as a hatter. ” 

At eleven there was kicking on the studio 
door. “Is the Nilghai with you still?” said a 
voice from within. “Then tell him he might 
have condensed the whole of his lumbering 
nonsense into an epigram: ‘Only the free are 
bond, and only the bond are free. ’ Tell him 
he’s an idiot, Torp, and tell him I’m another.” 

“All right. Come out and have supper. 
You’re smoking on an empty stomach.” 

There was no answer. 


5 Light that Failed 


66 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


CHAPTER V. ' 

“I have a thousand men,” said he, 

“To wait upon my will. 

And towers nine upon the Tyne, 

And three upon the Till.” 

“And what care I for your men,” said she, 

“Or towers from Tyne to Till, 

Sith you must go with me,” she said, 

“To wait upon my will?” 

—Sir Hoggie and the Fairies. 

Next morning Torpenhow found Dick sunk 
in deepest repose of tobacco. 

“Well, madman, how d’you feel?” 

“I don’t know. I’m trying to find out. ” 

“You had much better do some work.” 

“Maybe; but I’m in no hurry. I’ve made a 
discovery. Torp, there’s too much Ego in my 
Cosmos. ” 

“Not really! Is this revelation due to my 
lectures, or the Nilghai’s?” 

“It came to me suddenly, all on my own 
account. Much too much Ego; and now I’m 
going to work.” 

He turned over a few half-finished sketches, 
drummed on a new canvas, cleaned three 
brushes, set Binkie to bite the toes of a lay- 
figure, rattled through his collection of arms 
and accoutrements, and then went out ab- 
ruptly, declaring that he had done enough for 
the day. 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


67 


“This is positively indecent/’ said Torpen- 
how, “and the first time that Dick has ever 
broken up a light morning. Perhaps he has 
found out that he has a soul, or an artistic 
temperament, or something equally valuable. 
That comes of leaving him alone for a month. 
Perhaps he has been going out of evenings. 
I must look to this.” He rang for the bald- 
headed old housekeeper, whom nothing could 
astonish or annoy. 

“Beeton, did Mr. Heldardine out at all while 
I was out of town?” 

“Never laid ’is dress-clothes out once, sir, 
all the time. Mostly ’e dined in; but ’e 
brought some most remarkable fancy young 
gentlemen up ’ere after the theaters once or 
twice. Remarkable fancy they was. You 
gentlemen on the top floor does very much as 
you likes, but it do seem to me, sir, droppin' 
a walkin’-stick down five flights o’ stairs an* 
then goin’ down four abreast to pick it up 
again at half-past two in the mornin’, sing- 
ing’, ‘Bring back the whisky, Willie darlin’,* 
— not once or twice, but scores o’ times, — isn’t 
charity to the other tenants. What I say is, 
‘Do as you would be done by.’ That’s my 
motto. ’ ’ 

“Of course, of course! I’m afraid the top 
floor isn’t the quietest in the house.” 

“I make no complaints, sir. I have spoke 
to Mr. Heldar, friendly, an’ he laughed, an’ 
did me a picture of the Missis that is as good 
as a colored print. It ’asn’t the ’igh shine of 
a photograph, but what I say is, ‘Never look 


68 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


a gift-horse in the mouth. ’ Mr. Heldar’s 
dress-clothes ’aven’t been on him for weeks." 

‘‘Then it’s all right," said Torpenhow to 
himself. ‘‘Orgies are healthy, and Dick has 
a head of his own, but when it comes to 
women making eyes I’m not so certain. Bin- 
kie, never you be a man, little dorglums. 
They’re contrary brutes, and they do things 
without any reason. ’’ 

Dick had turned northward across the Park, 
but he was walking in the spirit on the mud- 
flats with Maisie. He laughed aloud as he re- 
membered the day when he had decked Am- 
omma’s horns with the ham-frills, and Maisie, 
white with rage, had cuffed him. How long 
those four years had been, and how intimately 
Maisie was connected with every hour of them! 
Storm across the sea, and Maisie in a gray 
flress on the beach, sweeping her drenched hair 
out of her eyes and laughing at the homeward 
race of the fishing-smacks; hot sunshine on 
the mud-flats, and Maisie sniffing scornfully, 
with her chin in the air; Maisie flying before 
the wind that threshed the foreshore and drove 
the sand like small shot about her ears; Mai- 
sie, very composed and independent, telling 
lies to Mrs. Jennett while Dick supported her 
with coarser perjuries; Maisie picking her way 
delicately from stone to stone, a pistol in her 
hand and her teeth firm-set; and Maisie in a 
gray dress, sitting on the grass between the 
mouth of a cannon and a nodding yellow sea- 
poppy. The pictures passed before him one 
by one, and the last stayed the longest. Dick 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


69 


was perfectly happy, with a quiet peace that 
was as new to his mind as it was foreign to his 
experience. It never occurred to him that 
there might be other calls upon his time than 
loafing across the Park in the forenoon. 

“There’s a good working light now," he 
said, watching his shadow placidly. “Some 
poor devil ought to be grateful for this. And 
there’s Maisie. ’’ 

She was walking toward him from the Mar- 
ble Arch, and he saw that no mannerism of 
her gait had been changed. It was good to 
find her still Maisie, and, so to speak, his 
next-door neighbor. No greeting passed be- 
tween them, because there had been none in 
the old days. 

“What are you doing out of your studio at 
this hour?’’ said Dick, as one who was entitled 
to ask. 

“Idling. Just idling. I got angry with a 
chin and scraped it out. Then I left it in a 
little heap of paint-chips and came away.’’ 

“I know what palette-knifing means. What 
was the piccy?’’ 

“A fancy head that wouldn’t come right — 
horrid thing!” 

“I don’t like working over scraped paint 
when I’m doing flesh. The grain comes up 
woolly as the paint dries.’’ 

“Not if you scrape properly. ’’ Maisie waved 
her hand to illustrate her methods. There 
was a dab of paint on the white cuff. Dick 
laughed. 

“You’re as untidy as ever.” 


70 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“That comes well from you. Look at your 
own cuff. ’ ’ 

“By jove, yes! It’s worse than yours. I 
don’t think we’ve much altered in anything-. 
Let’s see, though. ’’ He looked at Maisie crit- 
ically. The pale blue haze of an autumn day 
crept between the tree-trunks of the Park and 
made a background for the gray dress, the 
black velvet toque above the black hair, and 
the resolute profile. 

“No, there’s nothing changed. How good 
it is! D’you remember when I fastened your 
hair into the snap of a hand-bag?” 

Maisie nodded, with a twinkle in her eyes, 
and turned her full face to Dick. 

“Wait a minute,” said he. “That mouth is 
down at the corners a little. Who’s been 
worrying you, Maisie?” 

“No one but myself. I never seem to get 
on with my work, and yet I try hard enough, 
and Kami says ” 

Conthiuez^ mesdemoisclles, Continuez toujours, 
mes enfajits. ’ Kami is depressing. I beg your 
pardon. ” 

“Yes, that’s what he says. He told me last 
summer that I was doing better and he’d let 
me exhibit this year. ’ ’ 

“Not in this place, surely?” 

“Of course not. The Salon.” 

“You fly high. ” 

“I’ve been beating my wings long enough. 
Where do you exhibit, Dick?” 

“I don’t exhibit. I sell.” 

“What is your line, then?” 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


71 


“Haven’t you heard?” Dick’s eyes opened. 
Was this thing possible? He cast about for 
some means of conviction. They were not far 
from the Marble Arch. “Come up Oxford 
Street a little and I’ll show you.” 

A small knot of people stood round a print- 
shop that Dick knew well. “Some reproduc- 
tion of my work inside,” he said, with sup- 
pressed triumph. Never before had success 
tasted so sweet upon the tongue. “You see 
the sort of things I paint. D’you like it?” 

Maisie looked at the wild whirling rush of a 
field-battery going into action under fire. Two 
artillerymen stood behind her in the crowd. 

“They’ve chucked the off lead ’orse,” said 
one to the other. “’E’s tore up awful, but 
they’re makin’ good time with the others. 
That lead-driver drives better nor you, Tom. 
See ’ow cunnin’ ’e’s nursin’ ’is ’orse.” 

“Number Three’ll be off the limber, next 
jolt,” was the answer. 

“No, ’e won’t. See ’ow ’is foot’s braced 
against the iron? ’E’s all right.” 

Dick watched Maisie ’s face and swelled with 
joy — fine, rank, vulgar triumph. She was 
more interested in the little crowd than in the 
lecture. That was something that she could 
understand. 

“And I wanted it so! Oh, I did want it 
so!” she said, at last, under her breath. 

“Me — all me!” said Dick, placidly. “Look 
at their faces. It hits ’em. .They don’t know 
what makes their eyes and mouths open; but 
I know. And I know my work’s right.” 


72 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“Yes, I see. Oh, what a thing to have come 
to one!” 

“Come to one, indeed! I had to go out and 
look for it. What do you think?” 

“I call it success. Tell me how you got it. ” 

They returned to the Park, and Dick deliv- 
ered himself of the saga of his own doings, with 
all the arrogance of a young man speaking to 
a woman. From the beginning he told the 
tale, the I — I — I’s flashing through the records 
as telegraph-poles fly past the traveler. Maisie 
listened and nodded her head. The histories 
of strife and privation did not move her a 
hair’s breadth. At the end of each canto he 
would conclude, “And that gave me some 
notion of handling color,” or light, or what- 
ever it might be that he had set out to pursue 
and understand. He led her breathless across 
half the world, speaking as he had never 
spoken in his life before. And in the flood- 
tide of his exaltation there came upon him a 
great desire to pick up this maiden who nod- 
ded her head and said, “I understand. Go 
on,” — to pick her up and to carry her away 
with him, because she was Maisie, and because 
she understood, and because she was his right, 
and a woman to be desired above all women. 

Then he checked himself abruptly. “And 
so I took all I wanted,” he said, “and I had 
to fight for it. Now you tell.” 

Maisie’s tale was almost as gray as her dress. 
It covered years of patient toil backed by 
savage pride that would not be broken though 
dealers laughed, and fogs delayed work, and 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


73 


Kami was unkind and even sarcastic, and girls 
in other studios wete painfully polite. It had 
a few bright spots, — pictures accepted at pro- 
vincial exhibitions, — but it wound up with the 
oft-repeated wail, “And so you see, Dick, I 
had no success, though I worked so hard.” 

Then pity filled Dick. Even thus had Maisie 
spoken when she could not hit the breakwater, 
half an hour before she had kissed him. And 
that had happened yesterday. 

“Never mind,” said he. “I’ll tell you some- 
thing, if you’ll believe it.” The words were 
shaping themselves of their own accord. 
“The whole thing, lock, stock, and barrel, 
isn’t worth one big yellow sea-poppy below 
Fort Keeling.” 

Maisie flushed a little. 

“It’s all very well for you to talk, but you’ve 
had the success and I haven’t.” 

“Let me talk, then. I know you’ll under- 
stand. Maisie dear, it sounds a bit absurd, 
but those ten years never existed, and I’ve 
come back again. It really is just the same. 
Can’t you see? You’re alone now and I’m 
alone. What’s the use of worrying? Come 
to me instead, darling. ” 

Maisie poked the gravel with her parasol. 
They were sitting on a bench. ‘ ‘ I understand, ’ ’ 
she said slowly. “But I’ve got my work to 
do, and I must do it.” 

“Do it with me, then, dear. I won’t inter- 
rupt.” 

“No, I couldn’t. It’s my work — mine, — 
mine, — mine! I’ve been alone all my life in 

6 Light that Failed 


74 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


myself, and I’m not going to belong to any- 
body except myself. I remember things as 
well as you do, but that doesn’t count. We 
were babies then, and we didn’t know what 
was before us. Dick, don’t be selfish. I think 
I see my way to a little success next year. 
Don’t take it away from me.” 

“I beg your pardon, darling. It’s my fault 
for speaking idiotically. I can’t expect you 
to throw up all your life just because I’m 
back. I’ll go to my own place and wait a 
little. ” 

“But, Dick, I don’t want you to — go — out 
of — my life, now that you’ve just come back.” 

“I’m at your orders. Forgive me.” Dick 
devoured the troubled little face with his 
eyes. There was triumph in them, because 
he could not conceive how Maisie could refuse 
sooner or later to love him, since he loved her. 

“It’s wrong of me,” said Maisie, more slowly 
than before, “it’s wrong and selfish; but, oh, 
I’ve been so lonely! No, you misunderstand. 
Now I’ve seen you again — it’s absurd, but I 
want to keep you in my life.” 

“Naturally. We belong.” 

“We don’t; but you always understood me, 
and there is so much in my work that you 
could help me in. You know things and the 
ways of doing things. You must.” 

“I do, I fancy, or else I don’t know myself. 
Then I suppose you don’t care to lose sight of 
me altogether, and you want me to help you 
in your work?” 

“Yes; but remember, Dick, nothing will 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


75 


ever come of it. That’s why I feel so selfish. 
Let things stay as they are. I do want your 
help. ” 

“You shall have it. But let’s consider. I 
must see your pics first, and overhaul your 
sketches, and find out about your tendencies. 
You should see what the papers say about my 
tendencies. Then I’ll give you good advice, 
and you shall paint according. Isn’t that it, 
Maisie?’’ 

Again there was unholy triumph in Dick’s 
eye. 

“It’s too good of you — much too good. 
Because you are consoling yourself with what 
will never happen, and I know that, and yet 
I wish to keep you. Don’t blame me later, 
please.’’ 

“I’m going into the matter with my eyes 
open. Moreover, the queen can do no wrong. 
It isn’t your selfishness that impresses me. 
It’s your audacity in proposing to make use 
of me.’’ 

“Pooh! You’re only Dick — and a print- 
shop. ’ ’ 

“Very good. That’s all I am. But, Maisie, 
you believe, don’t you, that I love you? I 
don’t want you to have any false notions about 
brothers and sisters. ” 

Maisie looked up for a moment and dropped 
her eyes. 

“It’s absurd, but — I believe. I wish I 
could send you away before you get angry with 
me. But — but the girl that lives with me is 


76 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


red-haired, and an impressionist, and all our 
notions clash. ” 

“So do ours, I think. Never mind. Three 
months from to-day we shall be laughing at 
this together.” 

Maisie shook her head mournfully. “I knew 
you wouldn’t understand, and it will only hurt 
you more when you find out. Look at my face, 
Dick, and tell me what you see.” 

They stood up and faced each other for a 
moment. The fog was gathering, and it 
stifled the roar of the traffic of London beyond 
the railings. Dick brought all his painfully 
acquired knowledge of faces to bear on the 
eyes, mouth, and chin underneath the black- 
velvet toque. 

“It’s the same Maisie, and it’s the same me,” 
he said. “We’ve both nice little wills of our 
own, and one or other of us has to be broken. 
Now about the future. I must come and see 
your pictures some day — I suppose when the 
red-haired girl is on the premises.” 

“Sundays are my best times. You must 
come on Sundays. There are such heaps of 
things I want to talk about and ask your 
advice about. Now! must get back to work.” 

“Try to find out before next Sunday what I 
am,” said Dick. “Don’t take my word for 
anything I’ve told you. Good-by, darling, 
and bless you. ” 

Maisie stole away like a little gray mouse. 
Dick watched her till she was out of sight, but 
he did not hear her say to herself, very 
soberly: “I’m a wretch — a horrid selfish 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


77 


wretch. But it’s Dick, and Dick will under- 
stand. ” 

No one has yet explained what actually 
happens when an irresistible force meets the 
immovable post, though many have thought 
deeply, even as Dick thought. He tried to 
assure himself that Maisie would be led in a 
few weeks by his mere presence and discourse 
to a better way of thinking. Then he remem- 
bered much too distinctly her face and all that 
was written on it. 

“If I know anything of heads,’’ he said, 
“there’s everything in that face but love. I 
shall have to put that in myself; and that chin 
and mouth won't be won for nothing. But 
she’s right. She knows what she wants, and 
she’s going to get it. What insolence! Me! 
Of all the people in the wide world, to use me ! 
But then she’s Maisie. There’s no getting 
over that fact; and it’s good to see her again. 
This business must have been simmering at 
the back of my head for years. . . . She’ll 
use me as I used Binat at Port Said. She’s 
quite right. It will hurt a little. I shall have 
to see her every Sunday — like a young man 
courting a housemaid. She’s sure to come 
round; and yet — that much isn’t a yielding 
mouth. I shall be wanting to kiss her all the 
time, and I shall have to look at her pictures, 
— I don’t even know what sort of work she^ 
does yet, — and I shall have to talk about Art 
— Woman’s Art! Therefore, particularly and 
perpetually, damn all varieties of Art. It did 


78 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


me a good turn once, and now it’s in my 
way. I’ll go home and do some Art.” 

Half way to the studio, Dick was smitten 
with a terrible thought. The figure of a sol- 
itary woman in the fog suggested it. 

“She’s all alone in London, with a red- 
haired impressionist girl, who probably has 
the digestion of an ostrich. Most red-haired 
people have. Maisie’s a bilious little body. 
They’ll eat like lone women — meals at all -• 
hours, and tea with all meals. I remember 
how the students in Paris used to pig along. 
She may fall ill at any minute, and I shan’t 
be able to help. Whew! this is ten times 
worse than owning a wife.’’ 

Torpenhow came into the study at dusk, 
and looked at Dick with his eyes full of the 
austere love that springs up between men 
who have tugged at the same oar together 
and are yoked by custom and use and the 
intimacies of toil. This is a good love, and, 
since it allows, and even encourages, strife, 
recrimination, and the most brutal sincerity, 
does not die, but increases, and is proof against 
any absence and evil conduct. 

Dick was silent after he handed Torpenhow 
the filled pipe of council. He thought of 
Maisie and her possible needs. It was a new 
thing to think of anybody but Torpenhow, 
who could think for himself. Here at last 
was an outlet for that cash balance. He 
could adorn Maisie barbarically with jewelry, 
— a thick gold necklace round that little neck, 
bracelets upon the rounded arms, and rings 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


79 


of price upon her hands, — the cool, temperate, 
ringless*hands that he had taken between his 
own. It was an absurd thought, for Maisie 
would not even allow him to put one ring on 
one finger, and she would laugh at golden 
trappings. It would be better to sit with her 
quietly in the dusk, his arm round her neck 
and her face on his shoulder, as befitted hus- 
band and wife. Torpenhow’s boots creaked 
that night, and his strong voice jarred. Dick’s 
brows contracted and he murmured an evil 
word because he had taken all his success as a 
right and part payment for past discomfort, 
and now he was checked in his stride by a 
woman who admitted all the success and did 
not instantly care for him. 

“I say, old man,” said Torpenhow, who had 
made one or two vain attempts at conversa- 
tion, “I haven’t put your back up by anything 
I’ve said lately, have I?” 

“You! No. How could you?” 

“Liver out of order?” 

“The truly healthy man doesn’t know he 
has a liver. I’m only a bit worried about 
things in general. I suppose it’s my soul.” 

“The truly healthy man doesn’t know he 
has a soul. What business have you with 
luxuries of that kind?” 

“It came of itself. Who’s the man that 
says that we’re all islands shouting lies to 
■each other across seas of misunderstanding?” 

“He’s right, whoever he is — except about 
the misunderstanding. I don’t think we could 
misunderstand each other.” 


80 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


The blue smoke curled back from the ceiling 
in clouds. Then Torpenhow, insinuatingly: 

“Dick, is it a woman?” 

“Be hanged if it’s anything remotely 
resembling a woman; and if you begin to 
talk like that, I’ll hire a red-brick studio with 
white paint trimmings, and begonias and 
petunias and blue Hungarians to play among 
three-and-sixpenny pot-palms, and I’ll mount 
all my pics in aniline-dye plush plasters, and 
I’ll invite every woman who yelps and maun- 
ders and moans over what her guide-books 
tell her is Art, and you shall receive ’em, 
Torp — in a snuff-brown velvet coat with yel- 
low trousers and an orange tie. You’ll like 
that. ’’ 

“Too thiii, Dick. A better man than you 
denied with cursing and swearing on a memor- 
able occasion. You’ve overdone it, just as he 
did. It’s no business of mine, of course, but 
it’s comforting to think that somewhere under 
the stars there’s saving up for you a tremen- 
dous thrashing. Whether it’ll come from 
heaven or earth, I don’t know, but it’s bound 
to come and break you up a little. You want 
hammering. ’’ 

Dick shivered. “All right,’’ said he. 
“When this island is disintegrated it will call 
foi you.” 

“I shall come round the corner and help to 
disintegrate it some more. We’re talking 
nonsense. Come along to a theater.” 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


81 


CHAPTER VI. 

“And you may lead a thousand men, 

Nor ever draw the rein, 

But ere ye lead the Faery Queen 
’Twill burst your heart in twain.” 

He has slipped his foot from the stirrup bar. 
The bridle from his hand. 

And he is bound by hand and foot 
To the Queen o’ Faery-land. 

— Sir Hoggie and the Fairies. 

Some weeks later, on a very foggy Sunday, 
Dick was returning across the Park to his 
studio. “This,” he said, “is evidently the 
thrashing that Torp meant. It hurts more 
than I expected; but the queen can do no 
wrong ; and she certainly has some notion of 
drawing. ” 

He had just finished a Sunday visit to 
Maisie, — always under the green eyes of the 
red-haired impressionist girl, whom he learned 
to hate at sight, — and was tingling with a 
keen sense of shame. Sunday after Sunday, 
putting on his best clothes, he had walked 
over to the untidy house north of the Park, 
first to see Maisie ’s pictures, and then to 
criticise and advise upon them as he realized 
that they were productions on which advice 
would not be wasted. Sunday after Sunday, 
and his love grew with each visit, he had been 


82 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


compelled to cram his heart back from 
between his lips when it prompted him to kiss 
Maisie several times and very much indeed. 
Sunday after Sunday, the head above the heart 
had warned him that Maisie was not yet attain- 
able, and that it would be better to talk as 
connectedly as possible upon the mysteries of 
the craft that was all in all to her. Therefore 
it was his fate to endure weekly torture in the 
studio built out over the clammy back garden 
of a frail, stuffy little villa where nothing was 
ever in its right place and nobody ever called 
— to endure and to watch Maisie going to and 
fro with the tea-cups. He abhorred tea, but 
since it gave him a little longer in her pres- 
ence, he drank it devoutly, and the red-haired 
girl sat in an untidy heap and eyed him with- 
out speaking. She was always watching him. 
Once, and only once, when she had left the 
studio, Maisie showed him an album that held 
a few poor cuttings from provincial papers — 
the briefest of hurried notes on some of her 
pictures sent to outlying exhibitions. Dick 
stooped and kissed the paint-smudged thumb 
on the open page. “Oh, my love, my love,” 
he muttered, “do you value these things? 
Chuck ’em into the waste-paper basket!’’ 

“Not till I get something better,’’ said 
Maisie, shutting the book. 

Then Dick, moved by no respect for his 
public and a very deep regard for the maiden, 
did deliberately propose, in order to secure 
more of these coveted cuttings, that he 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


83 


should paint a picture which Maisie should 
sign. 

“That’s childish,” said Maisie, “and I 
didn’t think it of you. It must be my work. 
Mine, — mine, — mine ! ’ ’ 

“Go and design decorative medallions for 
rich brewers’ houses. You are thoroughly 
good at that. ” Dick was sick and savage. 

“Better things than medallions, Dick,” was 
the answer, in tones that recalled a gray-eyed 
atom’s fearless speech to Mrs. Jennett. Dick 
would have abased himself utterly, but that 
the other girl trailed in. 

Next Sunday he laid at Maisie’s feet small 
gifts of pencils that could almost draw of 
themselves and colors in whose permanence 
he believed, and he was ostentatiously atten- 
tive to the work in hand. It demanded, 
among other things, an exposition of the faith 
that was in him. Torpenhow’s hair would 
have stood on end had he heard the fluency 
with which Dick preached his own gospel of 
Art. A month before, Dick would have been 
equally astonished; but it was Maisie’s will 
and pleasure, and he dragged his words together 
to make plain to her comprehension all that 
had been hidden to himself of the whys and 
wherefores of work. There is not the least 
difficulty in doing a thing if you only know 
how to do it : the trouble is to explain your 
method. “I could put this right if I had a 
brush in my hand,” said Dick despairingly, 
over the modeling of a chin that Maisie com- 
plained would not “look flesh,” — it was the 


84 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


same chin that she had scraped out with the 
palette-knife, — “but I find it almost impos- 
sible to teach you. There’s a queer grim Dutch 
touch about your painting that I like; but 
I’ve a notion that you’re weak in drawing. 
You foreshorten as though you never used tlie 
model, and you’ve caught Kami’s pasty way 
of dealing with flesh in shadow. Then, again, 
though you don’t know it yourself, you shirk 
hard work. Suppose you spend some of your 
time on line alone. Line doesn’t allow of 
shirking. Oils do, and three square inches of 
flashy tricky stuff in the corner of a pic some- 
times carry a bad thing off — as I know. 
That’s immoral. Do line work for a little 
while, and then I can tell more about your 
powers, as old Kami used to say.’’ 

Maisie protested; she did not care for the 
pure line. 

“I know,’’ said Dick. “You want to do 
your fancy heads with a bunch of flowers at 
the base of the neck to hide bad modeling. ’’ 
The red-haired girl laughed a little. “You 
want to do landscapes wdth cattle knee-deep in 
grass to hide bad drawing. You want to do a 
great deal more than you can do. You have 
sense of color, but you want form. Color’s a 
gift, — put it aside and think no more about it, 
— but form you can be drilled into. Now, all 
your fancy heads — and some of them are very 
good — will keep you exactly where you are. 
With line you must go forward or backward, 
and it will show up all your weaknesses.’’ 

“But other people ” began Maisie. 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


85 


“You mustn’t mind what other people do. 
If their souls were your soul, it would be dif- 
ferent. You stand andfall byyour own work, 
remember, and it’s waste of time to think of 
any one else in this battle.” 

Dick paused, and the longing that had been 
so resolutely put away came back into his eyes. 
He looked at Maisie, and the look asked as 
plainly as words, was it not time to leave all 
this barren wilderness of canvas and counsel 
and join hands with Life and Love? 

Maisie assented to the new programme of 
schooling so adorably that Dick could hardly 
restrain himself from picking her up then and 
there and carrying her off to the nearest regis- 
trar’s office. It was the implicit obedience to 
the spoken word and the blank indifference to 
the unspoken desire that baffled and buffeted 
his soul. He held authority in that house — 
authority limited, indeed, to one-half of one 
afternoon in seven, but very real while it 
lasted. Maisie had learned to appeal to him 
on many subjects, from the proper packing of 
pictures to the condition of a smoky chimney. 
The red-haired girl never consulted him about 
anything. On the other hand, she accepted 
his appearaiices without protest, and watched 
him always. He discovered that the meals of 
the establishment were irregular and fragment- 
ary. They depended chiefly on tea, pickles, 
and biscuits, as he had suspected from the be- 
ginning. The girls were supposed to market 
week and week about, but they lived, with 
the help of a charwoman, as casually as the 


86 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


young ravens. Maisie spent most of her in- 
come on models, and the other girl reveled in 
apparatus as refined as her work was rough. 
Armed with knowledge dear-bought from the 
Docks, Dick warned Maisie that the end of 
semi-starvation meant the crippling of power to 
work, which was considerably worse than 
death. Maisie took the warning, and gave 
more thought to what she ate and drank. 
When his trouble returned upon him, as it 
generally did in the long winter twilights, the 
remembrance of that little act of domestic 
authority, and his coercion with a hearth-brush 
of the smoky drawing-room chimney, stung 
Dick like a lash. 

He conceived that this memor)’’ would be the 
extreme of his sufferings, till, one Sunday, the 
red-haired girl announced that she would make 
a study of Dick’s head, and that he would be 
good enough to sit still, and — quite as an after- 
thought — look at Maisie. He sat, because he 
could not well refuse, and for the space of half 
an hour he reflected on all the people in the 
past whom he had laid open for the purposes 
of his own craft. He remembered Binat most 
distinctly — that Binat who had once been an 
artist and talked about degradation. 

It was the merest monochrome roughing in 
of a head, but it presented the dumb waiting, 
the longing, and, above all, the hopeless en- 
slavement of the man, in a spirit of bitter 
mockery. 

“I’ll buy it, “said Dick promptly, “at your 
own price. ’’ 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


87 


“My price is too high, but I dare say you’ll 
be as grateful if ” The wet sketch flut- 

tered from the girl’s hand and fell into the 
ashes of the studio stove. When she picked it 
up it was hopelessly smudged. 

“Oh, it’s all spoiled!” said Maisie. “And I 
never saw it. Was it like?” 

“Thank you,” said Dick under his breath to 
the red-haired girl. And he removed himself 
swiftly. 

“How that man hates me!” said the girl. 
“And how he loves you, Maisie!” 

“What nonsense! I know Dick’s very fond 
of me, but he has his work to do, and I have 
mine.” 

“Yes, he is fond of you, and I think he 
knows there is something in impressionism, 
after all. Maisie, can’t you see?” 

“See? See what?” 

“Nothing; only, I know that if I could get 
any man to look at me as that man looks at 
you, I’d — I don’t know what I’d do. But he 
hates me. Oh, how he hates me!” 

She was not altogether correct. Dick’s 
hatred was tempered with gratitude for a few 
moments, and then he forgot the girl entirely. 
Only the sense of shame remained, and he was 
nursing it across the Park in the fog. “There’ll 
be an explosion one of these days,” he said 
wrathfully. “But it isn’t Maisie’s fault; she’s 
right, quite right, as far as she knows, and I 
can’t blame her. This business has been go- 
ing on for three months nearly. Three months! 
— and it cost me ten years’ knocking about to 


88 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


get at the notion, the merest raw notion, of 
my work. That’s true; but then I didn’t 
have pins, drawing-pins and palette-knives, 
stuck into me every Sunday. Oh, my little 
darling, if ever I break you, somebody will 
have a very bad time of it. No, she won’t. 
I’d be as big a fool about her as I am now. 
I’ll poison that red-haired girl on my wedding 
day, — she’s unwholesome, — and now I’ll pass 
on these present bad times to Torp. ” 

Torpenhow had been moved to lecture Dick 
more than once lately on the sin of levity, and 
Dick had listened and replied not a word. 
In the weeks between the first few Sundays of 
his discipline he had flung himself savagely 
into his work, resolved that Maisie should at 
least know the full stretch of his powers. Then 
he had taught Maisie that she must not pay 
the least attention to any work outside her 
own, and Maisie had obeyed him all too well. 
She took his counsels, but was not interested 
in his pictures. 

“Your things smell of tobacco and blood,’’ 
she said once. “Can’t you do anything except 
soldiers?’’ 

“I could do a head of you that would startle 
you,” thought Dick, — this was before the red- 
haired girl had brought him under the guillot- 
ine, — but he only said, “I am very sorry,’’ and 
harrowed Torpenhow’s soul that evening with 
blasphemies against Art. Later, insensibly 
and to a large extent against his own will, he 
ceased to interest himself in his own work. 
For Maisie ’s sake, and to soothe the self- 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


89 


respect that it seemed to him he lost each Sun- 
day, he would not consciously turn out bad 
stuff, but since Maisie did not care even for his 
best, it were better not to do anything at all 
save wait and mark time between Sunday and 
Sunday. Torpenhovv was disgusted as the 
weeks went by fruitless, and then attacked him 
one Sunday evening when Dick felt utterly 
exhausted after three hours’ biting self-re- 
straint in Maisie’s presence. There was Lan- 
guage, and Torpenhow withdrew to consult the 
Nilghai, who had come in to talk Continental 
politics. 

“Bone-idle, is he? Careless, and touched in 
the temper?” said the Nilghai. “It isn’t 
worth worr5dng over. Dick is probably play- 
ing the fool with a woman.” 

“Isn’t that bad enough?” 

“No. She may throw him out of gear and 
knock his work to pieces for a while. She 
may even turn up here some day and make a 
scene on the staircase. One never knowis. 
But until Dick speaks of his own accord you 
had better not touch him. He is no easy- 
tempered man to handle.” 

“No; I wish he were. He is such an aggres- 
sive, cocksure, you-be-damned fellow. ’ ’ 

“He’ll get that knocked out of him in time. 
He must learn that he can’t storm up and 
down the world with a box of moist tubes and 
a slick brush. You’re fond of him?” 

“I’d take any punishment that’s in store for 
him if I could; but the worst of it is, no man 
can save his brother.” 


90 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“No, and the worser of it is, there is no dis- 
charge in this war. Dick must learn his lesson 
like the rest of us. Talking of war, there’ll 
be trouble in the Balkans in the spring.” 

“That trouble is long coming. I wonder if 
we could drag Dick out there when it comes 
off?” 

Dick entered the room soon afterward, and 
the question was put to him. “Not good 
enough,” he said, shortly. “I’m too comf’y 
where I am. ” 

“Surely, you aren’t taking all the stuff in 
the papers seriously?” said the Nilghai. 
“Your vogue will be ended in less than six 
months, — the public will know your touch and 
go on to something new, — and where will you 
be then?” 

“Here, in England.” 

“When you might be doing decent work 
among us out there! Nonsense! I shall go, 
the Keneu will be there, Torp will be there, 
Cassavetti will be there, and the whole lot of 
us will be there, and we shall have as much 
as ever we can do, with unlimited fighting, 
and the chance for you of seeing things that 
would make the reputation of three Veresch- 
agins.” 

“Um!” said Dick, pulling at his pipe. 

“You prefer to stay here and imagine that 
all the world is gaping at your pictures? Just 
think how full an average man’s life is of his 
own pursuits and pleasures. When twenty 
thousand of him find time to look up between 
mouthfuls and grunt something about some- 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


91 


thing they aren’t the least interested in, the 
net result is called fame, reputation, -or noto- 
riety, according to the taste and fancy of the 
speller, my lord. ” 

“I know that as well as you do. Give me 
credit for a little gumption.” 

“Be hanged if I do!” 

“Be hanged, then: you probably will be — 
for a spy, by excited Turks. Heigh-ho! I’m 
weary, dead weary, and virtue has gone out 
of me.” Dick dropped into a chair, and was 
fast asleep in a minute. 

“That’s a bad sign,” said the Nilghai, in 
an undertone. 

Torpenhow picked the pipe from the waist- 
coat where it was beginning to burn, and put 
a pillow behind the head. “We can’t help; 
we can’t help,” he said. “It’s a good ugly 
sort of old cocoanut, and I’m fond of it. 
There’s the scar of the wipe he got when he 
was cut over in the square.” 

“Shouldn’t wonder if that has made him a 
trifle mad. ” 

“I should. He’s a most business-like mad- 
man. ” 

Then Dick began to snore furiously. 

“Oh, here! no affection can staqd this sort 
of thing. Wake up, Dick, and go and sleep 
somewhere else, if you intend to make a noise 
about it. ” 

“When a cat has been out on the tiles all 
night,” said the Nilghai in his beard, “I notice 
that she usually sleeps all day. This is natural 
history. ” 


92 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


Dick staggered away rubbing his eyes and 
yawning. In the night-watches he was over- 
taken with an idea, so simple and so luminous 
that he wondered he had never conceived it 
before. It was full of craft He would seek 
Maisie on a week-day, — would suggest an ex- 
cursion, and would take her by train to Fort 
Keeling over the very ground that they two 
had trodden together ten years ago. 

“As a general rule,” he explained to his 
chin-lathered reflection in the morning, “it 
isn’t safe to cross an old trail twice. Things 
remind one of things, and a cold wind gets up, 
and you feel sad; but this is an exception to 
every rule that ever was. I’ll go to Maisie at 
once. ” 

Fortunately, the red-haired girl was out 
shopping when he arrived, and Maisie, in her 
paint-spattered blouse, was warring with her 
canvas. She was not pleased to see him ; for 
week-day visits were a stretch of the bond ; 
and it needed all his courage to explain his 
errand. 

“I know you’ve been working too hard,” he 
concluded, with an air of authority. “If you 
do that, you’ll break down. You had much 
better come. ” 

“Where to?” said Maisie wearily. She had 
been standing before her easel too long, and 
was very wearied. 

“Anywhere you please. We’ll take a train 
to-morrow and see where it stops. We’ll have 
lunch somewhere, and I’ll bring you back in 
the evening.” 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


93 


“If there’s a good working-light to-morrow 
I lose a day.” Maisie balanced the heavy 
white chestnut palette irresolutely. 

Dick bit back an oath that was hurrying to 
his lips. He had not yet learned patience 
with the maiden to whom her work was all in 
all. “You’ll lose ever so many more, dear, 
if you use every hour of working light. Over- 
work’s only murderous idleness. Don’t be 
unreasonable. I’ll call for you to-morrow 
after breakfast early.” 

“But surely you are going to ask ?” 

“No, I am not. I want you and nobody else. 
Besides, she hates me as much as I hate her. 
She won’t care to come. To-morrow, then; 
and pray that we get sunshine.” 

Dick went away delighted, and by conse- 
quence did no work whatever. He strangled 
a wild desire to order a special train, but 
bought a great gray kangaroo cloak lined with 
glossy black marten, and then retired ‘into 
himself to consider things. 

“I’m going out for the day to-morrow with 
Dick,” said Maisie to the red-haired girl when 
the latter returned, tired, from marketing in 
the Edgware Road. 

“He deserves it. I shall have the studio 
floor thoroughly scrubbed while you’re away. 
It’s very dirty. ” 

Maisie had enjoyed no sort of holiday for 
months, and looked forward to the little excite- 
ments, but not without misgivings. 

“There’s nobody nicer than Dick when he 
talks sensibly,” she thought, “but I’m sure 


94 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


he’ll be silly and worry me, and I’m sure I 
can’t tell him anything he’d like to hear. If 
he’d only be sensible I should like him so much 
better.” 

Dick’s eyes were full of joy when he made 
his appearance next morning and saw Maisie, 
gray-ulstered and black- velvet-hatted, standing" 
in the hallway. Palaces of marble, and not 
sordid imitations of grained wood, were, 
surely, the fittest background for such a 
divinity. The red-haired girl drew her inta 
the studio for a moment and kissed her hur- 
riedly. Maisie’s eyebrows climbed to the top 
of her forehead: she was altogether unused 
to these demonstrations. ‘‘Mind my hat,” she 
said, hurrying away, and ran down the steps 
to Dick waiting by the hansom. 

‘‘Are you quite warm enough? Are you 
sure you wouldn’t like some more breakfast?" 
Put this cloak over your knees, ” 

‘‘I’m quite comf’y, thanks. Where are we 
going, Dick? Oh, do stop singing like that. 
People will think we’re mad.” 

‘‘Let ’em think — if the exertion doesn’t kill 
them. They don’t know who we are, and I’m 
sure I don’t care who they are. My faith, 
Maisie, you’re looking lovely!” 

Maisie stared directly in front of her and did 
not reply. The wind of a keen clear winter 
morning had put color into her cheeks. Over- 
head, the creamy-yellow smoke-clouds were 
thinning away one by one against a pale-blue 
sky, and the improvident sparrows broke off 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


95 


from water-spout committees and cab-rank 
cabals to clamor of the coming of spring. 

“It will be lovely weather in the country,** 
said Dick. 

“But where are we going?” 

“Wait and see. ” 

They stopped at Victoria, and Dick sought 
tickets. For less than half the fraction of 
an instant it occurred to Maisie, comfortably 
settled by the waiting-room fire, that it was 
much more pleasant to send a man to the 
booking-office than to elbow one’s own way 
through the crowd. Dick put her into a Pull- 
man — solely on account of the warmth there; 
and she regarded the extravagance with grave, 
scandalized eyes as the train moved out into 
the country. 

“I wish I knew where we are going,’* she 
repeated for the twentieth time. The name 
of a well-remembered station flashed by, 
toward the end of the run, and Maisie was 
enlightened. 

“Oh, Dick, you villain!” 

“Well, I thought you might like to see the 
place again. You haven’t been here since old 
times, have you?” 

“No. I never cared to see Mrs. Jennett 
again; and she was all that was ever there.” 

“Not quite. Look out a minute. There’s 
the windmill above the potato-fields. They 
haven’t built villas there yet. Do you remem- 
ber when I shut you up in it?” 

“Yes. How she beat you for it! I never 
told it was you. ” 


96 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“She guessed. I jammed a stick under the 
door and told you that I was burying Amom- 
ma alive in the potatoes. You believed me. 
You had a trusting nature in those days.” 4 
They laughed and leaned to look out, identi-| 
fying ancient landmarks with many reminis- 
cences. Dick fixed his weather eye on the 
curve of Maisie’s cheek, very near his own, 
and watched the blood rise under the clear skin. 
He congratulated himself upon his cunning, 
and looked that the evening would bring 
him a great reward. i 

When the train stopped they went out to 
look at an old town with new eyes. First, but i 
from a distance, they regarded the house of 1 
Mrs. Jennett. ■ 

“Suppose she should come out now, what 1 
would you do?” said Dick, with mock terror.^ 
“I should make a face.” ; 

“Show, then,” said Dick, dropping into 
the speech of childhood. Maisie made that 
face in the direction of the mean little villa, 
and Dick laughed aloud. 

“ ‘This is disgraceful,’ ” said Maisie, mim - 1 
icking Mrs. Jennett ’s tone. “‘Maisie, you! 
run in at once, and learn the collect, gospel, ! 
and epistle for the next three Sundays. After j 
all I’ve taught you, too, and three helps every i 
Sunday at dinner! Dick’s always leading 
you into mischief. If you aren’t a gentleman, 

Dick, you might at least ’ ” I 

The sentence ended abruptly. Maisie re- 
membered when it had last been used. 

“ ‘Try to behave like one,’ ” said Dick 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


97 


promptly. “Quite right. Now we’ll get some 
lunch and go on to Fort Keeling — unless you’d 
rather drive there?” 

“We must walk, out of respect to the place. 
How little changed it all is!’’ 

They turned in the direction of the sea 
through unaltered streets, and the influence 
of old things lay upon them. Presently they 
passed a confectioner’s shop, much considered 
in the days when their joint pocket-money 
amounted to a shilling a week. 

“Dick, have you any pennies?’’ said Maisie, 
half to herself. 

“Only three; and if you think you’re going 
to have two of ’em to buy peppermints with, 
you’re wrong. She says peppermints aren’t 
ladylike. ’ ’ 

Again they laughed, and again the color 
came into Maisie ’s cheeks as the blood boiled 
through Dick’s heart. After a large lunch 
they went down to the beach and to Fort Keel- 
ing across the waste, wind-bitten land that no 
builder had thought it worth his while to 
defile. The winter breeze came in from the 
sea and sang about their ears. 

“Maisie,’’ said Dick, “your nose is getting 
a crude Prussian blue at the tip. I’ll race you 
as far as you please for as much as you please. ’ ’ 

She looked round cautiously, and with a 
laugh set off, swiftly as the ulster allowed, 
till she was out of breath. 

“We used to run miles,’’ she panted. “It’s 
absurd that we can’t run now.’’ 

“Old age, dear. This it is to get fat and 

7 Light that Failed 


98 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


sleek in town. When I wished to pull your 
hair you generally ran for three miles, shriek- 
ing at the top of your voice. I ought to know, 
because those shrieks were meant to call up 
Mrs. Jennett with a cane and ” 

“Dick, I never got you a beating on purpose 
in my life. “ 

“No, of course you never did. Good Heav- 
ens! look at the sea." 

“Why, it’s the same as ever!” said Maisie. 

Torpenhow had gathered from Mr. Beeton 
that Dick, properly dressed and shaved, had 
left the house at half-past eight in the morning 
with a traveling rug over his arm. The Nil- 
ghai rolled in at mid-day for chess and polite 
conversation. 

“It’s worse than anything I imagined,” said 
Torpenhow. 

“Oh, the everlasting Dick, I suppose! You 
fuss over him like a hen with one chick. Let 
him run riot if he thinks it ’ll amuse him. 
You can whip a young pup off feather, but you 
can’t whip a young man.” 

“It isn’t a woman. It’s one woman. And 
it’s a girl.” 

“Where’s your proof?” 

“He got up and went out at eight this 
morning — got up in the middle of the night, 
byjove! a thing he never does except when 
he’s on service. Even then, remember, we 
had to kick him out of his blankets before the 
fight began at El-Maghrib. It’s disgust- 
ing.” 

“It looks odd; but maybe he’s decided to 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


99 


buy a horse at last. He might get up for that, 
mightn’t he?” 

‘‘Buy a blazing wheelbarrow! He’d have 
told us if there was a horse in the wind. It’s 
a girl.” 

‘‘Don’t be certain. Perhaps it’s only a mar- 
ried woman.” 

‘‘Dick has some sense of humor, if you 
haven’t. Who gets up in the gray dawn to 
call on another man’s wife? It’s a girl.” 

“Let it be a girl, then. She may teach him 
that there’s somebody else in the world besides 
himself. ’ ’ 

“She’ll spoil his hand. She’ll waste his 
time, and she’ll marry him and ruin his work 
forever. He’ll be a respectable married man. 
before we can stop him, and — he’ll never go 
on the long trail again.” 

“All quite possible, but the earth won’t spin 
the other way when it happens. . . . Ho! 
ho! I’d give something to see Dick ‘go wooing 
with the boys.’ Don’t worry about it. These 
things be with Allah, and we can only look 
on. Get the chessmen. ” 

The red-haired girl was lying down in her 
own room, staring at the ceiling. The foot- 
steps of people on the pavement sounded as 
they grew indistinct in the distance, like a 
many-times-repeated kiss that was all one long 
kiss. Her hands were by her side, and they 
opened and shut savagely from time to time. 

The charwoman in charge of the scrubbing 
of the studio knocked at her door: “Beg y’ par- 
don, miss, but in cleanin’ of a floor there’s 

Life 


100 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


two, not to say three, kind of soap, which is 
yaller, an’ mottled, an’ disinfectink. Now, 
jist before I took my pail into the passage I 
thought I would be pre’aps jest as well if I 
was to come up ’ere an’ ask you what sort of 
soap you was wishful that I should use on 
them boards. The yaller soap, miss ” 

There was nothing in the speech to have 
caused the paroxysm of fury that drove the 
red-haired girl into the middle of the room 
almost shouting: 

“Do you suppose I care what you use? Any 
kind will do! — any kind!’’ 

The woman fled, and the red-haired girl 
looked at her own reflection in the glass for an 
instant and covered her face with her hands. 
It was as though she had shouted some shame- 
less secret aloud. 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


101 


CHAPTER VII. 

Roses red and roses white 
Plucked I for my love’s delight, 

She would none of all my posies, — 

Bade me gather her blue roses. 

Half the world I wandered through, 

Seeking where such flowers grew ; 

Half the world unto my quest 
Answered but with laugh and jest. 

It may be beyond the grave 

She shall find what she would have. 

Oh, ’twas but an idle quest, — 

Roses white and red are best ! 

— Blue Roses. 

Indeed the sea had not changed. Its waters 
were low on the mud-banks, and the Marazion 
bell-buoy clanked and swung in the tide-way. 
On the white beach sand dried stumps of sea- 
poppy shivered and chattered together. 

“I don’t see the old breakwater,” said 
Maisie, under her breath. 

“Let’s be thankful that we have as much as 
we have. I don’t believe they’ve mounted a 
single new gun on the fort since we were here. 
Come and look. ” 

They came to the glacis of Fort Keeling, 
and sat down in a nook sheltered from the wind 
under the tarred throat of a forty-pounder 
cannon. 


102 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“Now, if Amomma were only here!” said 
Maisie. 

For a long time both were silent. Then 
Dick took Maisie’s hand and called her by her 
name. 

She shook her head and looked out to sea. 

“Maisie, darling, doesn’t it make any differ- 
ence?” 

“No!” between clinched teeth. “I’d — I’d 
tell you if it did; but it doesn’t. Oh Dick, 
please be sensible.” 

“Don’t you think it will?” 

“No, I’m sure of that.” 

“Why?” 

Maisie rested her chin on her hand, and, still 
regarding the sea, spoke hurriedly: 

“I know what you want perfectly well, but 
I can’t give it you Dick. It isn’t my fault; 
indeed it isn’t. If I felt that I could care for 

any one But I don’t feel that I care. I 

simply don’t understand what the feeling 
means. ” 

“Is that true, dear?” 

“You’ve been very good to me, Dickie; and 
the only way I can pay you back is by speak- 
ing the truth. I daren’t tell a fib. I despise 
myself quite enough as it is.” 

“What in the world for?” 

“Because — because I take everything that 
you give me and I give you nothing in return. 
It’s mean and selfish of me, and whenever I 
think of it it worries me.” 

“Understand, once for all, then, that I can 
manage my own affairs, and if I choose to do 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


103 


anything you aren’t to blame. You haven’t a 
single thing to reproach yourself with, dar- 
ling.” 

“Yes, I have, and talking only makes it 
worse. ” 

“Then don’t talk about it.” 

“How can I help myself? If you find me 
alone for a minute you are always talking 
about it; and when you aren’t you look it. 
You don’t know how I despise myself some- 
times. ” 

“Great goodness!” said Dick, nearly jump- 
ing to his feet. “Speak the truth, now, 
Maisie, if you never speak it again! Do I — 
does this worrying bore you?” 

“No. It does not. ” 

“You’d tell me if it did?” 

“I should let you know, I think.” 

“Thank you. The other thing is fatal. 
But you must learn to forgive a man when 
he’s in love. He’s always a nuisance. You 
must have known that?” 

Maisie did not consider the last question 
worth answering, and Dick was forced to 
repeat it. “There were other men, of course. 
They always worried just when I was in the 
middle of my work, and wanted me to listen to 
them. ” 

“Did you listen?” 

“At first; and they couldn’t understand why 
I didn’t care. And they used to praise my 
pictures; and I thought they meant it. I used 
to be proud of the praise, and tell Kami, and — 


104 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


I shall never forget — once Kami laughed at 
me. 

“You don’t like being laughed at Maisie, do 
you?” 

“I hate it. I never laugh at other people 
unless — unless they do bad work. Dick, tell 
me honestly what you think of my pictures 
generally — of everything of mine that you’ve 
seefo. ’’ 

“Honest, honest, and honest ever?’’ quoted 
Dick from a catch-word of long ago. “Tell 
me what Kami always says.’’ 

Maisie hesitated. “He — he says that there 
is feeling in them.’’ 

“How dare you tell me a fib like that? Re- 
member, I was under Kami for two years. I 
know exactly what he says.’’ 

“It isn’t a fib. ’’ 

“It’s worse. It’s a half-truth. Kami says 
when he puts his head on one side, — so , — ' Ily 
a du sentiment, mais il ny a pas de parti pris' ’’ 
He rolled the r threateningly, as Kami used 
to do. 

“Yes, that is what he says; and I’m begin- 
ning to think that he’s right.’’ 

“Certainly he is. ’’ Dick admitted that two 
people in the world would do and say no 
wrong. Kami was the man. “And now you 
say the same thing. It’s so disheartening.’’ 

“I’m sorry you asked me to speak the truth. 
Besides, I love you too much to pretend about 
your work. It’s strong, it’s patient some- 
times, — not always, — and sometimes there’s 
power in it, but there’s no special reason why 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


105 


it should be done at all. At least, that’s how 
it strikes me. ” 

“There’s no special reason why anything in 
the world should ever be done. You know 
that as well as I do. I only want success. ’ ’ 

“You’re going the wrong way to get it, then. 
Hasn’t Kami ever told you that?’’ 

“Don’t quote Kami to me. I want to know 
what you think. My work’s bad to begin 
with. ’’ 

“I didn’t say that, and I don’t thinkit. ’’ 

“It’s amateurish, then.’’ 

“That it most certainly is not. Your’e a 
work- woman, darling, to your boot-heels, and 
I respect you for that. ’’ 

“You don’t laugh at me behind my 
back?” 

“No, dear. You see, you are more to me 
than any one else. Put this cloak thing round 
you or you'll get chilled. ’’ 

Maisie wrapped herself in the soft marten 
skins, turning the gray kangaroo fur to the 
outside. 

“This is delicious,” she said, rubbing her 
chin thoughtfully along the fur. “Well? 
Why am I wrong in trying to get a little suc- 
cess?” 

“Just because you try. Don’t you under- 
stand, darling? Good work has nothing to do 
with — doesn’t belong to — the person who does 
it. It’s put into him or her from outside. ” 

“But how does that affect ” 

“Wait a minute. All we can do is to learn 
how to do our work, to be masters of our ma- 

8 Light that Failed 


106 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


terials instead of servants, and never to be 
afraid of anything. ’ ’ 

“I understand that.” 

“Everything else comes from outside our- 
selves. Very good. If we sit down quietly to 
work out notions that are sent to us, we may 
or we may not do something that isn’t bad. 
A great deal depends on being master of the 
bricks and mortar of the trade. But the in- 
stant we begin to think about success and the 
effect of our work — to play with one eye on 
the gallery — we lose power and touch and 
everything else. At least that’s how I have 
found it. Instead of being quiet and giving 
every power you possess to your work, you’re 
fretting over something which you can neither 
help nor hinder by a minute. See?” 

“It’s so easy for you to talk in that way. 
People like what you do. Don’t you ever 
think about the gallery?” 

“Much too often; but I’m always punished 
for it by loss of power. It’s as simple as the 
Rule of Three. If we make light of our work 
by using it for our own ends, our work will 
make light of us, and, as we’re the weaker, 
we’ll suffer. ” 

“I don’t treat my work lightly. You know 
that it’s everything to me. ” 

“Of course; but, whether you realize it or 
not, you give two strokes for yourself to one 
for your work. It isn’t your fault, darling. 
I do exactly the same thing, and know that 
I’m doing it. Most of the French schools, 
and all the schools here, drive the students to 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


107 


work to their own credit, and for the sake of 
their pride. I was told that all the world was 
interested in my work, and everybody at 
Kami’s talked turpentine, and I honestly be- 
lieved that the world needed elevating and in- 
fluencing, and all manner of impertinences, by 
my brushes. By Jove, I actually believed 
that! When my little head was bursting with 
a notion that I couldn’t handle because I 
hadn’t sufficient knowledge of my craft, I used 
to go about wondering at my own magnificence 
and getting ready to astonish the world.” 

‘‘But surely one can do that sometimes?” 

‘‘Very seldom with malice aforethought, dar- 
ling. And when it’s done it’s such a tiny 
thing, and the world’s so big, and all but a 
millionth part of it doesn’t care. Maisie, come 
with me and I’ll show you something of the 
size of the world. One can no more avoid 
working than eating, — that goes on by itself, 

- — but try to see what you are working for. I 
know such little heavens that I could take you 
to — islands tucked away under the Line. You 
sight them after weeks of crashing through 
water as black as marble because it’s so deep, 
and you sit in the forechains day after day and 
see the sun rise almost afraid because the sea 
is so lonely. ” 

‘‘Who is afraid? — you, or the sun?” 

‘‘The sun, of course. And there are noises 
under the sea, and sounds overhead in a clear 
sky. Then you find your island alive with hot 
moist orchids that make mouths at you and 
can do everything except talk. There’s a 


108 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


waterfall in it three hundred feet high, just 
like a sliver of green jade laced with silver; and 
millions of wild bees live up in the rocks ; and 
you can hear the fat cocoanuts falling from 
the palms ; and you order an ivory-white ser- 
vant to sling you a great yellow hammock with 
tassels on it like ripe maize, and you put up 
your feet and hear the bees hum and the water 
fall till you go to sleep.” 

‘‘Can one work there?” 

‘‘Certainly. One must do something always. 
You hang your canvas up in a palm tree and 
let the parrots criticise. When they scuffle 
you heave a ripe custard-apple at them, and it 
bursts in a lather of cream. There are hun- 
dreds of places. Come and see them. ” 

‘‘I don’t quite like that place. It sounds 
lazy. Tell me another.” 

‘‘What do you think of a big, red, dead city 
built of red sandstone, with raw green aloes 
growing between the stones, lying out neg- 
lected on honey-colored sands? There are 
forty dead kings there, Maisie, each in a gor- 
geous tomb finer than all the others. You 
look at the palaces and streets and shops and 
tanks, and think that men must live there, till 
you find a wee gray squirrel rubbing its nose 
all alone in the market-place, and a jeweled 
peacock struts out of a carved doorway and 
spreads its tail against a marble screen as fine- 
pierced as point-lace. Then a monkey— a lit- 
tle black monkey — walks through the main 
square to get a drink from a tank forty feet 
deep. He slides down the creepers to the 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


109 


water’s edge, and a friend holds him by the 
tail, in case he should fall in.” 

‘‘Is all that true?” 

‘‘I have been there and seen. Then even- 
ing comes, and the lights change till it’s just 
as though you stood in the heart of a king- 
opal. A little before sundown, as punctually 
as clock-work, a big bristly wild boar, with all 
his family following, trots through the city 
gate, churning the foam on his tusks. You 
climb on the shoulder of a blind, black stone 
god and watch that pig choose himself a pal- 
ace for the night and stump in, wagging his 
tail. Then the night-wind gets up, and the 
sands move, and you hear the desert outside 
the city singing, ‘Now I lay me down to 
sleep,’ and everything is dark till the moon 
rises. Maisie, darling, come with me and see 
what the world is really like. It’s very lovely, 
and it’s very horrible, — but I won’t let you see 
anything horrid, — and it doesn’t care your life 
or mine for pictures or anything else except 
doing its own work and making love. Come, 
and I’ll show you how to brew sangaree, and 
sling a hammock, and — oh, thousands of 
things, and you’ll see for yourself what color 
means, and we’ll find out together what love 
means, and then maybe we shall be allowed to 
do some good work. Come away!” 

‘‘Why?” said Maisie. 

‘‘How can you do anything until you have 
seen everything, or as much as you can? And 
besides, darling, I love you. Come along with 
me. You have no business here; you don’t 


110 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


belong to this place; you’re half a gypsy — 
your face tells me that; and I — even the smell 
of open water makes me restless. Come across 
the sea and be happy!” 

He had risen to his feet, and stood in the 
shadow of the gun, looking down at the girl. 
The very short winter afternoon had worn 
away, and, before they knew, the winter moon 
was walking the untroubled sea. Long ruled 
lines of silver showed where a ripple of the 
rising tide was turning over the mud-banks. 
The wind had dropped, and in the intense 
stillness they could hear a donkey cropping 
the frosty grass many yards away. A faint 
beating, like that of a muffled drum, came out 
of the moon-haze. 

“What’s that?” said Maisie quickly. “It 
sounds like a heart beating. Where is it?” 

Dick was so angry at this sudden wrench to 
his pleadings that he could not trust himself 
to speak, and in this silence caught the sound. 
Maisie from her seat under the gun watched 
him with a certain amount of fear. She 
wished so much that he would be sensible and 
cease to worry her with over-sea emotion that 
she both could and could not understand. She 
was not prepared, however, for the change in 
his face as he listened. 

“It’s a steamer,” he said — “a twin-screw 
steamer, by the beat. I can’t make her out, 
but she must be standing very close in-shore. 
Ah!” as the red of a rocket streamed the haze, 
“she’s standing in to signal before she clears 
the Channel. ” 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


Ill 


“Is it a wreck?” said Maisie, to whom these 
words were as Greek. 

Dick’s eyes were turned to the sea. “Wreck ! 
What nonsense ! She’s only reporting herself. 
Red rocket forward — there’s a green light aft 
now, and two red rockets from the bridge.” 

“What does that mean?” 

“It’s the signal of the Cross-Keys Line 
running to Australia. I wonder which steam- 
er it is.” The note of his voice had changed; 
he seemed to be talking to himself, and Maisie 
did not approve of it. The moonlight broke 
the haze for a moment, touching the black 
sides of a long steamer working down Chan- 
nel. “Four masts and three funnels — she’s 
in deep draught, too. That must be the Bar- 
ralong, or the Bhutia. No, the Bhutia has a 
clipper bow. It’s the Barralong, to Australia. 
She’ll lift the Southern Cross in a week — lucky 
old tub! — oh, lucky old tub!” 

He stared intently, and moved up the slope 
of the fort to get a better view, but the mist 
on the sea thickened again, and the beating of 
the screws grew fainter. Maisie called to him 
a little angrily, and he returned, still keeping 
his eyes to seaward. “Have you ever seen 
the Southern Cross blazing right over your 
head?” he asked. “It’s superb!” 

“No,” she said shortly, “and I don’t want 
to. If you think it’s so lovely, why don’t you 
go and see it yourself?” 

She raised her face from the soft blackness 
of the marten skins about her throat, and her 
eyes shone like diamonds. The moonlight on 


112 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


the gray kangaroo fur turned it to frosted sil- 
ver of the coldest. 

“By jove, Maisie, you look like a little 
heathen idol tucked up there.” The eyes 
showed that they did not appreciate the com- 
pliment. “I’m sorry,” he continued. “The 
Southern Cross isn’t worth looking at unless 
some one helps you to see. That steamer’s 
out of hearing. ” 

“Dick,” she said quietly, “suppose I were 
to come to you now, — be quiet a minute, — just 
as I am, and caring for you just as much as I 
do. ” 

“Not as a brother, though? You said you 
didn’t — in the Park.” 

“I never had a brother. Suppose, I said, 
‘Take me to those places, and in time, per- 
haps, I might really care for you. ’ What would 
you do?” 

“Send you straight back to where you came 
from, in a cab. No, I wouldn’t. I’d let you 
walk. But you couldn’t do it, dear. And I 
wouldn’t run the risk. You’re worth waiting 
for till you can come without reservation. ’ ’ 

“Do you honestly believe that?” 

“I have a hazy sort of idea that I do. Has 
it never struck you in that light?” 

“Ye — es. I feel so wicked about it.” 

“Wickeder than usual?” 

“You don’t know all I think. It’s almost 
too awful to tell. ” 

“Never mind. You promised to tell me the 
truth — at least.” 

“It’s so ungrateful of me, but, — but, though 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


113 


I know you care for me, and I like to have 
you with me, I’d — I’d even sacrifice you, if 
that would bring me what I want.” 

“My poor little darling! I know that state 
of mind. It doesn’t lead to good work.” 

“You aren’t angry? Remember, I do de- 
spise myself. ” 

“I’m not exactly flattered, — I had guessed 
as much before, — but I’m not angry. I’m 
sorry for you. Surely you ought to have left 
a littleness like that behind you, years ago. ” 

“You’ve no right to patronize me! I only 
want what I have worked for so long. It came 
to you without any trouble, and — and I don’t 
think it’s fair. ” 

“What can I do? I’d give ten years of my 
life to get you what you want. But I can’t 
help you; even I can’t help you.” 

A murmur of dissent from Maisie. 

“And I know by what you have just said 
that you’re on the wrong road to success. It 
isn’t got by sacrificing other people — I’ve had 
that much knocked into me: you must sacri- 
fice yourself, and live under orders, and never 
think of yourself, and never have real satis- 
faction in your work except just at the begin- 
ning, when you’re reaching out after a 
notion. ” 

“How can you believe all that?” 

“There’s no question of belief or disbelief. 
That’s the law, and you take it or refuse it 
as you please. I try to obey, but I can’t, and 
then my work turns bad on my hands. Under 
any circumstances, remember, four-fifths of 

8 


114 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


everybody’s work must be bad. But the 
remnant is worth the trouble for its own sake. ” 

“Isn’t it nice to get credit even for bad 
work!*’’ 

“It’s much too nice. But May I tell 

you something? It isn’t a pretty tale, but 
you’re so like a man that I forget when I’m 
talking to you. ’’ 

“Tell me.’’ 

“Once when I was out in the Soudan I went 
over some ground that we had been fighting 
on for three days. There were twelve hun- 
dred dead; and we hadn’t time to bury them.” 

“How ghastly!’’ 

“I had been at work on a big double-sheet 
sketch, and I was wondering what people 
would think of it at home. The sight of that 
field taught me a good deal. It looked just like 
a bed of horrible toadstools in all colors, and — 
I’d never seen men in bulk go back to their 
beginnings before. So I began to understand 
that meh and women were only material to 
work with, and that what they said or did was 
of no consequence. See? Strictly speaking, 
you mi^ht just as well put your ear down to 
the palette to catch what your colors are say- 
ing. “ 

“Dick, that’s disgraceful!’’ 

“Wait a minute. I said, strictly speaking. 
Unfortunately, every one must be either a man 
or a woman. ’’ 

“I'm glad you allow that much.’’ 

“In your case I don’t. You aren’t a woman. 
But ordinary people, Maisie, must behave and 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


115 


work as such. That’s what makes people 
so savage. ” He hurled a pebble toward the 
sea as he spoke. “I know that it is outside of 
my business to care what people say; I can 
see that it spoils my output if I listen to ’em ; 
and yet, confound it all,” — another pebble 
flew seaward, — ‘‘I can’t help purring when 
I’m rubbed the right way. Even when I can 
see on a man’s forehead that he is lying his 
way through a clump of pretty speeches, those 
lies make me happy and play the mischief with 
my hand. ” 

“And when he doesn’t say pretty things?” 

“Then, belovedst, ’ ’ — Dick grinned, — “I 
forgot that I am the steward of these gifts, 
and I want to make that man love and appre- 
ciate my work with a thick stick. It’s too 
humiliating altogether; but I suppose even if 
one were an angel and painted humans alto- 
gether from outside, one would lose in touch 
what one gained in grip.” 

Maisie laughed at the idea of Dick as an 
angel. 

“But you seem to think,” she said, “that 
everything nice spoils your hand.” 

“I don’t think. It’s the law, — just the same 
as it was at Mrs. Jennett’s. Everything that 
is nice does spoil your hand. I’m glad you see 
so clearly.” 

“I don’t like the view.” 

“Nor I. But have got orders: what can do? 
Are you strong enough to face it alone?” 

“I suppose I must.” 

“Let me help, darling. We can hold each 


116 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


Other very tight and try to walk straight. We 
shall blunder horribly, but it will be better 
than stumbling apart. Maisie, can’t you see 
reason?” 

“I don’t think we should get on together. 
We should be two of a trade, and we should 
never agree. ’ ’ 

“How I should like to meet the man who 
made that proverb! He lived in a cave and 
ate raw bear, I fancy. I’d make him eat his 
own arrow-heads. Well?” 

“I should be only half married to you. I 
should worry and fuss about my work, as I do 
now. Four days out of the seven I’m not fit 
to speak to. ’ ’ 

“You talk as if no one else in the world had 
ever used a brush. D’you suppose that I 
don’t know the feeling of worry and bother 
and can’t-get-at-ness? You’re lucky if you 
only have it four days out of the seven. What 
difference would that make?” 

“A great deal, if you have it, too.” 

“Yes, but I could respect it. Another man 
might not. He might laugh at you. There’s 
no use talking about it. If you can think in 
that way you can’t care for me — yet.” 

The tide had nearly covered the mud-banks, 
and twenty little ripples broke on the beach 
before Maisie chose to speak. 

“Dick,” she said slowly, “I believe very 
much that you are better than I am.” 

“This doesn’t seem to bear on the argument 
— but in what way?” 

“I don’t quite know, but in what you said 


I HE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


117 


about work and things; and then you’re so 
patient. Yes, you’re better than I am.” 

Dick considered rapidly the murkiness of an 
average man’s life. There is nothing in the 
review to fill him with a sense of virtue. He 
lifted the hem of the cloak to his lips. 

“Why,” said Maisie, making as though she 
had not noticed, ‘‘can you see things that I 
can’t? I don’t believe what you believe; but 
you’re right, I believe.” 

‘‘If I’ve seen anything, God knows I couldn’t 
have seen it but for you, and I know that I 
couldn’t have said it except to you. You 
seemed to make everything clear for a minute; 
but I don’t practice what I preach. You 
would help me. . . There are only us two in 
the world for all purposes, and — and you like to 
have me with you. ’ ’ 

“Of course I do. I wonder if you can realize 
how utterly lonely I am?” 

“My darling, I think I can.” 

“Two years ago, when I first took the little 
house, I used to walk up and down the back 
garden trying to cry. I never can cry. Can 
you?” 

“It’s some time since I cried. What was 
the trouble? Overwork?” 

“I don’t now. I used to dream that I had 
broken down, and had no money, and was starv- 
ing in London. I thought about it all day, 
and it frightened me. Oh, how it frightened 
me!” 

“I know that fear. It’s the most terrible of 


118 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


all. It wakes me up in the night sometimes. 
You oughten’t to know anything about it.” 

“How do you know?” 

“Never mind. Is your three hundred a year 
safe?” 

“It’s in Consols. ” 

“Very well, if any one comes to you and 
recommends a better investment, — even if I 
should come to you, — don’t you listen. Never 
shift the money for a minute, and never lend a 
penny of it — even to the red-haired girl.” 

“Don’t scold me so! I am not likely to be 
foolish.” 

“The earth is full of men who’d sell their 
souls for three hundred a year. And women 
come and talk, and borrow a five-pound note 
here and a ten-pound note there ; and a woman 
has no conscience in a money debt. Stick to 
your money, Maisie; for there’s nothing more 
ghastly in the world than poverty in London. 
It’s scared me. By jove, it put the fear into 
me! And one oughtn’t to be afraid of any- 
thing.” 

To each man is appointed his particular dread 
— the terror that, if he does not fight against 
it, will cow him even to the loss of his man- 
hood. Dick’s experience of the sordid misery 
of want had entered into the deeps of him, 
and, though he might not find virtue too easy, 
the memory stood before him, tempting to 
shame, when dealers came to buy his wares. 
As the Nilghai quaked against his will at the 
still green water of a lake or a mill-dam, as 
Torpenhow flinched before any white arm that 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


119 


could cut or stab and loathed himself for flinch- 
ing, Dick feared the poverty he had once tasted 
half in jest. His burden was heavier than the 
burdens of his companions. 

Maisie watched the face working in the 
moonlight. 

“You’ve plenty of pennies now,” she said, 
soothingly. 

“I shall never get enough,” he began, with 
vicious emphasis. Then, laughing, “I shall 
always be threepence short in my accounts.” 

“Why threepence?” 

“I carried a man’s bag once from Liverpool 
Street Station to Blackfriars Bridge. It was 
a sixpenny job, — you needn’t laugh; indeed it 
was, — and I wanted the money desperately. 
He only gave me threepence; and he hadn’t 
even the decency to pay in silver. Whatever 
money I make, I shall never get that odd 
threepence out of the world.” 

This was not language befitting the man 
who had preached of the sanctity of work. It 
jarred on Maisie, who preferred her payment 
in applause, which, since all men desire it, 
must be of the right. She gravely hunted 
for her little purse and took out a threepenny 
bit. 

“There it is,” she said. “I’ll pay you, 
Dickie, and don’t worry any more. It isn’t 
worthwhile. Are you paid?” 

“I am,” said the very human apostle of fair 
craft, taking the coin. “I’m paid a thousand 
times, and we’ll close that account. It shall 


120 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


live on my watch-chain. You’re an angel, 
Maisie.” 

“I’m very cramped, and I’m feeling a little 
cold. Good gracious! the cloak is all white, 
and so is your mustache! I never knew it 
was so chilly. ’’ 

A light frost lay white on the shoulder of 
Dick’s ulster. He, too, had forgotten the state 
of the weather. They laughed together, and 
with that laugh ended all serious discourse. 

They ran inland across the waste to warm 
themselves, then turned to look at the glory 
of the full tide under the moonlight and the 
intense black shadows of the furze-bushes. 
It was an additional joy to Dick that Maisie 
could see color even as he saw it, — could see 
the blue in the white of the mist, the violet 
that is in gray palings, and all things else as 
they are, — not of one hue, but a thousand. 
And the moonlight came into Maisie’s soul, so 
that she, usually reserved, chattered of herself 
and of the things she took interest in, — of 
Kami, wisest of teachers, and of the girls in 
the studio, — of the Poles, who will kill them- 
selves with overwork if they are not checked; 
of the French, who talk at great length of 
much more than they will ever accomplish ; of 
the slovenly English, who toil hopelessly and 
cannot understand that inclination does not 
imply power; of the Americans, whose rasp- 
ing voices in the hush of a hot afternoon strain 
tense-drawn nerves to breaking-point, and 
whose suppers lead to indigestion ; of tempes- 
tuous Russians, neither to hold nor to bind. 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


121 


who tell the girls ghost-stories till the girls 
shriek ; of stolid Germans, who come to learn 
one thing, and, having mastered that much, 
stolidly go away and copy pictures for ever- 
more. Dick listened enraptured because it 
was Maisie who spoke. He knew the old life. 

“It hasn’t changed much,” he said. “Do 
they still steal colors at lunch-time?” 

“Not steal. Attract is the word. Of course, 
they do. I am good. I only attract ultrama- 
rine ; but there are students who’d attract flake- 
white. ” 

“I’ve done it myself. You can’t help it 
when the palettes are hung up. Every color 
is common property once it runs down — even 
if you do start it with a drop of oil. It teaches 
people not to waste their tubes. ’ ’ 

“I should like to attract some of your c^ors, 
Dick. Perhaps I could catch your success 
with them.” 

“I mustn’t say a bad word, but I should like 
to. What in the world, which you’ve missed 
a lovely chance of seeing, does success or want 
of success, or a three-storied success, matter 

compared to No, I will not open the 

question again. It’s time to go back to town. ” 

“I’m sorry, Dick, but ” 

“You’re much more interested in that than 
you are in me. ’ ’ 

“I don’t know. I don’t think I am.” 

“What will you give me if I tell you a sure 
short-cut to everything you want, — the trouble 
and the fuss and the tangle and all the rest? 
Will you promise to obey me?” 


122 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“Of course. “ 

“In the first place, you must never forget a 
meal because you happen to be at work. You 
forgot your lunch twice last week,” said Dick, 
at a venture, for he knew with whom he was 
dealing. 

“ISlo, no, only once, really.” 

“That’s bad enough. And you mustn’t take 
a cup of tea and a biscuit in place of a regular 
dinner, because dinner now happens to be a 
trouble. ’ ’ 

“You’re making fun of me!” 

“I never was more in earnest in my life. 
Oh, my love, my love, hasn’t it dawned on 
you yet what you are to me? Here’s the whole 
earth in a conspiracy to give you a chill, or 
run over you, or drench you to the skin, or 
cheat you out of your money, or let you die of 
overwork and underfeeding, and I haven’t the 
mere right to look after you. Why, I don’t 
even know if you have sense enough to put on 
warm things when the weather’s cold.” 

“Dick, you’re the most awful boy to talk to 
— really! How do you suppose I managed 
when you were away?” 

“I wasn’t here, and I didn’t know. But 
now I’m back I’d give everything I have for 
the right of telling you to come in out of the 
rain. ” 

“Your success, too?” 

This time it cost Dick a severe struggle to 
refrain from bad words: 

“As Mrs. Jennett used to say, you’re a trial, 
Maisie! You’ve been cooped up in the schools 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


123 


too long, and yon think every one is looking 
at you. There aren’t twelve hundred people 
in the world who understand pictures. The 
others pretend and don’t care. Remember, 
I’ve seen twelve hundred men dead in toad- 
stool beds. It’s only the voice of the tiniest 
little fraction of people that makes success. 
The real world doesn’t care a tinker’s — doesn’t 
care a bit. For aught you or I know, every 
man in the world may be arguing with a Mai- 
sie of his own. ” 

“Poor Maisie!’’ 

“Poor Dick, I think. Do you believe while 
he’s fighting for what’s dearer than his life he 
wants to look at a picture? And even if he 
did, and if all the world did, and a thousand 
million people rose up and shouted hymns to 
m}’’ honor and glory, would that make up to 
me for the knowledge that you were out shop- 
ping in the Edgware Road on a rainy day 
without an umbrella? Now we’ll go to the 
station. ’’ 

“But you said on the beach ’’ persisted 

Maisie, with a certain fear. 

Dick groaned aloud: “Yes, I know what I 
said. My work is everything I have, or am, 
or hope to be, to me, and I believe I’ve learnt 
the law that governs it; but I’ve some linger- 
ing sense of fun left — though you’ve nearly 
knocked it out of me. I can just see that it 
isn’t everything to all the world. Do what I 
say, and not what I do.’’ 

Maisie was careful not to reopen debatable 
matters, and they returned to London joyously. 


124 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


The terminus stopped Dick in the midst of an 
eloquent harangue on the beauties of exercise. 
He would buy Maisie a horse, — such a horse as 
never yet bowed head to bit, — would stable it, 
with a companion, some twenty miles from 
London, and Maisie, solely for her health’s 
sake, should ride with him twice or thrice a 
week. 

“That’s absurd,’’ said she. “It wouldn’t be 
proper. ’ ’ 

“Now, who in all London to-night would 
Lave sufficient audacity to call us two to ac- 
count for anything we chose to do?” 

Maisie looked at the lamps, the fog, and the 
hideous turmoil. Dick was right ; but horse- 
, flesh did not make for Art as she understood 
it. 

“You’re very nice sometimes, but you’re 
very foolish more times. I’m not going to let 
you give me horses, or take you out of your 
way to-night. I’ll go home by myself. Only 
I want you to promise me something. You 
won’t think any more about that extra three- 
pence, will you? Remember, you’ve been paid; 
and I won’t allow you to be spiteful and do bad 
work for a little thing like that. You can be so 
hig that you mustn’t be tiny.’’ 

This was turning the tables with a ven- 
geance. There remained only to put Maisie 
into her hansom. 

“Good-by,” she said, simply. “You’ll come 
on Sunday. It has been a beautiful day, Dick. 
Why can’t it be like this always?’’ 

“Because love’s like line-work; you must go 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


125 


forward or backward; you can’t stand still. 
By the way, go on with your line-work. Good- 
night, and, for my — for any sake, take care 
of yourself.” 

He turned to walk home, meditating. The 
day had brought him nothing that he hoped 
for, but — surely, this was worth many days — it 
had brought him nearer to Maisie. The end 
was only a question of time now, and the prize 
well worth the waiting. By instinct, once 
more, he turned to the river. 

“And she understood at once,” he said, 
looking at the water. ‘‘She found out my pet 
besetting sin on the spot, and paid it off. My 
God, how she understood! And she said I 
was better than she was! Better than she 
was!” He laughed at the absurdity of the 
notion. ‘‘I wonder if girls guess one half a 
man’s life. They can’t, or — they wouldn’t 
marry us. ” He took her gift out of his pocket, 
and considered it in the light of a miracle and 
a pledge of the comprehension that, one day, 
would lead to perfect happiness. Meantime, 
Maisie was alone in London, with none to 
save her from danger. And the packed wil- 
derness was very full of danger. Dick made 
his prayer to Fate disjointedly after the man- 
ner of heathen as he thre^^ the piece of silver 
into the river. If any evil were to befall, let 
him bear the burden and let Maisie go un- 
scathed — since the threepenny piece was dear- 
est to him of all his possessions. It was a 


126 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


small coin in itself, but Maisie had given it, 
and the Thames held it, and surely, the Fates 
would be bribed for this once. That was his- 
last thought as he went to bed. 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


12 ? 


CHAPTER VIII. 

“If I have taken the common clay 
And wrought it cunningly 
In the shape of a god that was digged a clod. 

The greater honor to me.” 

“If thou hast taken the common clay, 

And thy hands be not free 
From the taint of the soil, thou hast made thy spoil 
The greater shame to thee.” 

— The Two Potters. 

He did no work of any kind for a week. 
Then came another Sunday. He dreaded and 
longed for the day always, but since the red- 
haired girl had sketched him there was rather 
more dread than desire in his mind. He found 
that Maisie had entirely neglected his sugges- 
tions about line-work. She had gone off at 
score, filled with some absurd notion for a 
“fancy head. ’’ It cost Dick something to com- 
mand his temper. 

“What’s the good of suggesting anything?” 
he said, pointedly. 

“Ah, but this will be a picture — a real pic- 
ture ; and I know that Kami will let me send 
it to the Salon. You don’t mind, do you?” 

“I suppose not. But you won’t have time 
for the Salon.” 

Maisie hesitated a little. She even felt 
uncomfortable. 


128 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“We’re going over to France a month sooner 
because of it. I shall get the idea sketched 
out here and work it up at Kami’s. “ 

Dick’s heart stood still, and he came very 
near to being disgusted with his queen who 
could do no wrong. “Just when I thought I 
had made some headway, she goes off chasing 
butterflies. It’s too maddening!’’ 

There was no possibility of arguing, for the 
red-haired girl was in the studio. Dick could 
only look unutterable reproach. 

“Fm sorry,’’ he said, “and I think you make 
a mistake. But what’s the idea of your new 
picture?’’ 

“I took it from a book.’’ 

“That’s bad, to begin with. Books aren’t 

the places for pictures. And ?’’ 

“It’s this,’’ said the red-haired girl behind 
him. “I was reading it to Maisie the other 
day from ‘The City of Dreadful Night’ 
D’you know the book?’’ 

“A little. I am sorry I spoke. There are 
pictures in it. What has taken her fancy?’’ 
“The description of the Melancolia: 

“ ‘Her folded wings as of a mighty eagle, 

But all too impotent to lift the regal 
Robustness of her earth-born strength and pride.* 

And here again. (Maisie, get the tea, dear.) 

“ ‘The forehead charged with baleful thoughts and 
dreams. 

The household bunch of keys, the housewife’s gown, 
Voluminous indented, and yet rigid 
As though a shell of burnished metal frigid. 

Her feet thick-shod to tread all weakness down.’ ” 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


129 


There was no attempt to conceal the scorn 
of the lazy voice. Dick winced. 

“But that has been done already by an ob- 
scure artist of the name of Durer, ’’said he. 
“How does the poem run? 

“ 'Three centuries and threescore years ago, 

With fantasies of his peculiar thought.’ 

You might as well try to rewrite ‘Hamlet.* It 
will be a waste of time. ’’ 

“No, it won’t,’’ said Maisie, putting down 
the teacups with a clatter to reassure herself. 
“And I mean to do it. Can’t you see what a 
beautiful thing it would make?’’ 

“How in perdition can one do work when 
one hasn’t had the proper training? Any fool 
can get a notion. It needs training to drive the 
thing through — training and conviction; not 
rushing after the first fancy.’’ Dick spoke 
between his teeth. 

“You don’t understand,’’ said Maisie. “I 
think I can do it. ’’ 

Again the voice of the girl behind him : 

* “Baffled and beaten back, she works on still; 

Weary and sick of soul, she works the more. 
Sustained by her indomitable will, 

The hands shall fashion, and the brain shall pore, 
And all her sorrow shall be turned to labor ’ 

I fancy Maisie means to embody herself in 
the picture. ’ ’ 

“Sitting on a throne of rejected pictures? 
No, I shan’t, dear. The notion in itself has 
fascinated me. Of course you don’t care for 

9 Light that Failed 


130 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


fancy heads, Dick. I don’t think you could do 
them. You like blood and bones.” 

‘‘That’s a direct challenge. If you can do a 
Melancholia that isn’t merely a sorrowful 
female head, I can do a better one; and I will, 
tob. What d’ you know about Melancholias?” 
Dick firmly believed that he was even then 
tasting three-quarters of all the sorrow in the 
world. 

‘‘She was a womam” said Maisie, “and she 
suffered a great deal — till she could suffer no 
more. Then she began to laugh at it all, and 
then I painted her and sent her to the Salon.” 

The red-haired girl rose up and left the 
room, laughing. 

Dick looked at Maisie humbly and hope- 
lessly. 

“Never mind about the picture,” he said. 
“Are you really going back to Kami’s a month 
before your time?” 

“I must go, if I want to get the picture 
done.” 

“And that’s all you want?” 

“Of course. Don’t be stupid, Dick.” 

“You haven’t the power. You have only the 
ideas — the ideas and the little cheap impulses. 
How you could have kept at your work for ten 
years steadily is a mystery to me. So you are 
really going — a month before you need?” 

“I must do my work.” 

“Your work — bah! . . . No, I didn’t mean 
that. It’s all right, dear. Of course you 
must do your work, and — I think I’ll say 
good-by for this week.” 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


131 


“Won’t you even stay for tea?” 

“No, thank you. Have I your leave to go, 
dear? There’s nothing more you particularly 
want me to do, and the line- work doesn’t mat- 
ter.” 

“I wish you could stay, and then we could 
talk over my picture. If only one single 
picture’s a success it draws attention to all 
the others. I know some of my work is good, 
if only people could see. And you needn’t 
have been so rude about it. “ 

“I’m sorry. We ’ 11 talk the Melancholia over 
some one of the other Sundays. There are 
four more — yes one, two, three, four — before 
you go. Good-by, Maisie. ” 

Maisie stood by the studio window, think- 
ing, till the red-haired girl returned, a little 
white at the corners of her lips. 

“Dick’s gone off, ’’ said Maisie. “Just when 
I wanted to talk about the picture. Isn’t it 
selfish of him?’’ 

Her companion opened her lips as if to 
speak, shut them again, and went on reading 
“The City of Dreadful Night.’’ 

Dick was in the Park, walking round and 
round a tree that he had chosen as his confi- 
dante for many Sundays past. He was swear- 
ing audibly, and when he found that the 
infirmities of the English tongue hemmed in 
his rage he sought consolation in Arabic, which 
is expressly designed for the use of the afflic- 
ted. He was not pleased with the reward of 
his patient service; nor was he pleased with 
himself; and it was long before he arrived at 


132 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


the proposition that the queen could do no 
wrong. 

“It’s a losing game,” he said. “I’m worth 
nothing when a whim of hers is in question. 
But in a losing game at Port Said we used to 
double the stakes and go on. She do a Mel- 
ancholia! She hasn’t the power, or the 
insight, or the training. Only the desire. 
She’s cursed with the curse of Reuben. She 
won’t do line- work, because it means real 
work; and yet she’s stronger than I am. I’ll 
make her understand that I can beat her on 
her own Melancholia. Even then she wouldn’t 
care. She says I can only do blood and bones. 
I don’t believe she has blood in her veins. 
All the same I love her; and I must go on lov- 
ing her; and if I can humble her inordinate 
vanity I will. I’ll do a Melancholia that shall 
be something like a Melancholia — ‘the Melan- 
cholia that transcends all wit. ’ I’ll do it at 
once, con — bless her.” 

He discovered that the notion would not 
come to order, and that he could not free his 
mind for an hour from the thought of Maisie’s 
departure. He took very small interest in 
her rough studies for the Melancholia when 
she showed them next week. The Sundays 
were racing past, and the time was at hand 
when 'all the church bells in London could not 
ring Maisie back to him. Once or twice he 
said something to Binkie about “hermaphro- 
ditic futilities,” but the little dog received so 
many confidences both from Torpenhow and 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


133 


Dick that he did not trouble his tulip-ears to 
listen. 

Dick was permitted to see the girls off. 
They were going by the Dover night-boat; 
and they hoped to return in August. It was 
then February, and Dick felt that he was being 
hardly used. Maisie was so busy stripping the 
small house across the Park, and packing her 
canvases, that she had no time for thought. 
Dick went down to Dover and wasted a day 
there fretting over a wonderful possibility. 
Would Maisie at the very last allow him one 
small kiss? He reflected that he might cap- 
ture her by the strong arm, as he had seen 
women captured in the Southern Soudan, and 
lead her away; but Maisie would never be led. 
She would turn her gray eyes upon him and 
say, “Dick, how selfish you are!” Then his 
courage would fail him. It would be better, 
after all, to beg for that kiss. 

Maisie looked more than usually kissable as 
she stepped from the night-mail on to the 
windy pier, in a gray waterproof and a little 
gray cloth traveling-cap. The red-haired 
girl was not so lovely. Her green eyes were 
hollow and her lips were dry. Dick saw the 
trunks aboard; and went to Maisie’s side in 
the darkness under the bridge. The mail bags 
were thundering into the forehold, and the 
red-haired girl was watching them. 

“You’ll have a rough passage to-night,” said 
Dick. “It’s blowing outside. I suppose I 
may come over and see you if I’m good?” 

“You mustn’t. I shall be busy. At least, 


134 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


if I want you ITl send for you. But I shall 
write from Vitry-sur- Marne. I shall have 
heaps of things to consult you about. Oh, 
Dick, you have been so good to me ! — so good 
to me!” 

‘‘Thank you for that, dear. It hasn’t made 
any difference, has it?” 

‘‘I can’t tell a fib. It hasn't — in that way. 
But don’t think I’m not grateful.” 

‘‘Damn the gratitude!” said Dick huskily, 
to the paddle-box. 

‘‘What’s the use of worrying? You know I 
should ruin your life, and you’d ruin mine, as 
things are now. You remember what you said 
when you were so angry that day in the Park? 
One of us has to be broken. Can’t you wait 
till that day comes?” 

‘‘No, love. I want you unbroken — all to 
myself. ” 

Maisie shook her head. ‘‘My poor Dick, 
what can I say?” 

‘‘Don’t say anything. Give me a kiss? 
Only one kiss, Maisie. I’ll swear I won’t 
take any more. You might as well, and 
then I can be sure you’re grateful.” 

Maisie put her cheek forward, and Dick took 
his reward in the darkness. It was only one 
kiss, but since there was no time-limit speci- 
fied, it was a long one. Maisie wrenched her- 
self free angrily, and Dick stood abashed and 
tingling from head to heel. 

‘‘Good-by, darling. I didn’t mean to scare 
you. I’m sorry. Only — keep well and do 
good work, — specially the Melancholia. I’m 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


135 


g-oing to do one, too. Remember me to 
Kami, and be careful what you drink. Country 
drinking-water is bad everywhere, but it’s 
worse in France. Write to me if you want 
anything, and good-by. Say good-by to the 
what-you-call-um girl, and — can’t I have 
another kiss? No. You’re quite right. 
Good-by. 

A shout told him that it was not seemly to 
charge up the mail-bag incline. He reached 
the pier as the steamer began to move off, 
and he followed her with his heart. 

“And there’s nothing — nothing in the wide 
world — to keep us apart except her obstinacy. 
These Calais night-boats are much too small. 
I’ll get Torp to write to the papers about it. 
She’s beginning to pitch already.’’ 

Maisie stood where Dick had left her till 
she heard a little gasping cough at her elbow. 
The red-haired girl’s eyes were alight with 
cold flanie. 

“He kissed you!’’ she said. “How could 
you let him, when he wasn’t anything to you? 
How dared you take a kiss from him? Oh, 
Maisie, let’s go to the ladies’ cabin. I’m sick 
— deadly sick. 

“We aren’t into open water yet. Go down, 
dear, and I’ll stay here. I don’t like the smell 
of the engines. . . Poor Dick! He deserved 
one, — only one. But I didn’t think he’d 
frighten me so. ’’ 

Dick returned to town next day just in time 
for lunch, for which he had telegraphed. To 
his disgust, there were only empty plates in 


136 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


the studio. He lifted up his voice like the 
bears in the fairy-tale, and Torpenhow en- 
tered, looking very guilty. 

“H’sh!” said he. “Don’t make such a noise. 
I took it. Come into my rooms, and I’ll show 
you why. ’’ 

Dick paused amazed at the threshold, for 
on Torpenhow’s sofa lay a girl asleep and 
breathing heavily. The little cheap sailor-hat, 
the blue-and-white dress, fitter for June than 
for February, dabbled with mud at the skirts, 
the jacket trimmed with imitation Astrakhan 
and ripped at the shoulder-seams, the one-and- 
elevenpenny umbrella, and, above all, the 
disgraceful condition of the kid-topped boots, 
declared all things. 

“Oh, I say, old man, this is too bad! You 
mustn’t bring this sort up here. They steal 
things from the rooms.” 

“It looks bad, I admit, but I was coming in 
after lunch, and she staggered into the hall. 
I thought she was drunk at first, but it was 
collapse. I couldn’t leave her as she was, so 
I brought her up here and gave her your lunch. 
She was fainting from want of food. She 
went fast asleep the minute she had finished. ” 

“I know something of that complaint. She’s 
been living on sausages, I suppose. Torp, 
you should have handed her over to a police- 
man for presuming to faint in a respectable 
house. Poor little wretch! Look at that face ! 
There isn’t an ounce of immorality in it. 
Only folly, — slack, fatuous, feeble, futile folly. 
It’s a typical head. D’you notice how the skull 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


137 


begins to show through the flesh padding on 
the face and cheekbone?” 

“What a cold-blooded barbarian it is! Don't 
hit a woman when she’s down. Can’t we do 
anything? She was simply dropping with 
starvation. She almost fell into my arms, and 
when she got to the food she ate like a wild 
beast. It was horrible.” 

‘‘I can give her money, which she would 
probably spend in drinks. Is she going to 
sleep forever?” 

The girl opened her eyes and glared at the 
men between terror and effrontery. 

‘‘Feeling better?” said Torpenhow. 

“Yes. Thank you. There aren’t many 
gentlemen that are as kind as you are. Thank 
you. ” 

“When did you leave service?” said Dick, 
who had been watching the scarred and 
chapped hands. 

“How did you knov/ I was in service? I 
was. General servant. I didn’t like it.” 

“And how do you like being your own mis- 
tress?” 

“Do I look as if I liked it?” 

“I suppose not. One moment. Would you 
be good enough to turn your face to the win- 
dow?” 

The girl obeyed, and Dick watched her face 
keenly — so keenly that she made as if to hide 
behind Torpenhow. 

“The eyes have it,’’ said Dick, walking up 
and down. “They are superb eyes for my 
business. And, after all, every head depends 

10 Light that Failed 


138 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


on the eyes. This has been sent from heaven 
to make up for — what was taken away. Now 
the weekly strain’s off my shoulders, I can get 
to work in earnest. Evidently sent from 
heaven. Yes. Raise your chin a little, 
please. ” 

“Gently, old man, gently! You’re scaring 
somebody out of her wits, ’’ said Torpenhow, 
who could see the girl trembling. 

“Don’t let him hit me! Oh, please don’t let 
him hit me! I’ve been hit cruel to-day be- 
cause I spoke to a man. Don’t let him look 
at me like that ! He’s reg’lar wicked, that one. 
Don’t let him look at me like that, neither! 
Oh, I feel as if I hadn’t nothing on when he 
looks at me like that!” 

The over- strained nerves in the frail body 
gave way, and the girl wept like a little child 
and began to scream. Dick threw open the 
window, and Torpenhow flung the door 
back. 

“There you are,’’ said Dick, soothingly. 
“My friend, here, can call for a policeman, and 
you can run through that door. Nobody is 
going to hurt you. ’’ 

The girl sobbed convulsively for a few min- 
utes, and then tried to laugh. 

“Nothing in the world to hurt you. Now 
listen to me for a minute. I’m what they call 
an artist by profession. You know what 
artists do?” 

“They draw the things in red and black ink 
on the pop-shop labels.” 

“I dare say. I haven’t risen to pop-shop 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


139 


labels yet. Those are done by the Academi- 
cians. I want to draw your head. ” 

“What for?” 

“Because it's pretty. That is why you will 
come to the room across the landing three 
times a week at eleven in the morning, and I’ll 
give you three quid a week just for sitting still 
and being drawn. And there’s a quid on 
account. ’’ 

“For nothing? Oh, my!” The girl turned 
the sovereign in her hand, and with more fool- 
ish tears: “Ain’t neither o’ you two gentlemen 
afraid of my bilking you?’’ 

“No. Only ugly girls do that. Try and 
remember this place. And, by the way, 
what’s your name?’’ 

“I’m Bessie — Bessie It’s no use giving 

the rest. Bessie Broke — Stone-broke, if you 
like. What’s your names? But there — no one 
ever gives the real ones.’’ 

Dick consulted Torpenhow with his eyes: 

“My name’s Heldar, and my friend’s called 
Torpenhow; and you must be sure to come 
here. Where do you live?’’ 

“South-the- water — one room — five and six- 
pence a week. Aren’t you making fun of me 
about that three quid?” 

“You’ll see later on. And, Bessie, next 
time you come, remember, you needn’t wear 
that paint. It’s bad for the skin. I have all 
the colors you’ll be likely to need.’’ 

Bessie withdrew,* scrubbing her cheek with 
a ragged pocket-handkerchief. The two men 
looked at each other. 


140 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“You’re a man,’’ said Torpenhow. 

“I’m afraid I’ve been a fool. It isn’t our 
business to run about the earth reforming 
Bessie Broke. And a woman of any kind has 
no right on this landing.” 

“Perhaps she won’t come back.” 

“She will if she thinks she can get food and 
warmth here. I know she will, worse luck. 
But remember, old man, she isn’t rl woman: 
she’s my model; and be careful.” 

“The idea! She’s a dissolute little scare- 
crow — a gutter-snippet, and nothing more.” 

“So you think. Wait till she has been fed a 
little and freed from fear. That fair type re- 
covers itself very quickly. You won’t know 
her in a week or two, when that abject fear 
has died out of her eyes. She’ll be too happy 
and smiling for my purposes. ” 

“But surely you’re taking her out of charity? 
to please me?” 

“I am not in the habit of playing with hot 
coals to please anybody. She has been sent 
from heaven, as I may have remarked before, 
to help me with my Melancolia. ” 

“Never heard a word about the lady be- 
fore.” 

“What’s the use of having a friend, if you 
must sling your notions at him in words? You 
ought to know what I’m thinking about. 
You’ve heard me grunt lately?” 

“Even so; but grunts mean anything in 
your language, from bad ’baccy to wicked 
dealers. And I don’t think I’ve been much in 
your confidence for some time.” 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


141 


“It was a high and soulful grunt. You 
ought to have understood that it meant the 
Melancolia. ’’ Dick walked Torpenhow up 
and down the room, keeping silence. Then he 
smote him in the ribs. “Now don’t you see 
it? Bessie’s abject futility, and the terror in 
her eyes, welded on to one or two details in 
the way of sorrow that have come under my 
experience lately. Likewise some orange and 
black — two keys of each. But I can’t explain 
on an empty stomach.’’ 

“It sounds mad enough. You’d better stick 
to your soldiers, Dick, instead of maundering 
about heads and eyes and experiences.’’ 

“Think so?’’ Dick began to dance on his 
heels, singing: 

“ They’re as proud as a turkey when they hold the 
ready cash. 

You ought to ’ear the way they laugh an’ joke ; 

They are tricky an’ they’re funny when they’ve got 
the ready money — , 

Ow! but to see ’em when they’re all stone-broke.” 

Then he sat down to pour out his heart to 
Maise in a four-sheeti letter of counsel and en- 
couragement, and registered an oath that he 
would get to work with an undivided heart as 
soon as Bessie should reappear. 

The girl kept her appointment unpainted 
and unadorned, afraid and overbold by turns. 
When she found that she was merely expected 
to sit still she grew calmer, and criticised the 
appointments of the studio with freedom and 
some point. She liked the warmth and the 
comfort and the release from fear of physical 


142 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


pain. Dick made two or three studies of her 
head in monochrome, but the actual notion of 
the Melancolia would not arrive. 

“What a mess you keep your things in!” 
said Bessie, some days later, when she felt her- 
self thoroughly at home. “I s’pose your 
clothes are just as bad. Gentlemen never 
think what buttons and tape are made for.” 

“I buy things to wear, and wear ’em till 
they go to pieces. I don’t know what Torpen- 
how does. ’ ’ 

Bessie made diligent inquiry in the latter’s 
room, and unearthed a bale of disreputable 
socks. “Some of these I’ll mend now,” she 
said, “and some I’ll take home. D’you know, 
I sit all day long at home doing nothing, just- 
like a lady, and no more noticing them other 
girls in the house than if they was so many 
flies? I don’t have any unnecessary words, 
but I put ’em down quick, I can tell you, when 
they talk to me. No, it’s quite nice these 
days. I lock my door, and they can only call 
me names through the keyhole, and I sit in- 
side, just like a lady, mending socks. Mr. 
Torpenhow wears his socks out both ends at 
once.” 

“Three quid a week from me, and the de- 
lights of my society. No socks mended. 
Nothing from Torp except a nod on the land- 
ing now and again, and all his socks mended. 
Bessie is very much a woman,” thought Dick; 
and he looked at her between half-shut eyes. 
Food and rest had transformed the girl, as 
Dick knew they would. 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


143 


“What are you looking at me like that for?” 
she said quickly. “Don’t. You look reg’lar 
bad when you look that way. You don’t think 
much o’ me, do you?’’ 

“That depends on how you behave.’’ 

Bessie behaved beautifully. Only it was 
difficult at the end of a sitting to bid her go 
forth into the gray streets. She very much 
preferred the studio and a big chair by the 
stove, with some socks in her lap as an excuse 
for delay. Then Torpenhow would come in, 
and Bessie would be moved to tell strange and 
wonderful stories of her past, and still stranger 
ones of her present improved circumstance^ 
She would make them tea as though she had a 
right to make it; and once or twice on these 
occasions Dick caught Torpenhow’s eyes fixed 
on the trim little figure, and because Bessie’s 
flittings about the room made Dick ardently 
long for Maisie, he realized whither Torpen- 
' how’s thoughts were tending. And Bessie 
was exceedingly careful of the condition of 
Torpenhow’s linen. She spoke very little to 
him, but sometimes they talked together on 
the landing. 

“I was a great fool,’’ Dick said to himself. 
“I know what red firelight looks like when a 
man’s tramping through a strange town; and 
ours is a lonely, selfish sort of life at the best. 
I wonder Maisie doesn’t feel that sometimes. 
But I can’t order Bessie away. That’s the 
worst of beginning things. One never knows 
where they stop. ’’ 

One evening, after a sitting prolonged to the 


144 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


last limit of the light, Dick was roused from a 
nap by a broken voice in Torpenhow’s room. 
He jumped to his feet “Now what ought I 
to do? It looks foolish to go in. — Oh, bless 
you, Binkie!” The little terrier thrust Tor- 
penhow’s door open with his nose and came 
out to take possession of Dick’s chair. The 
door swung wide unheeded, and Dick across 
the landing could see Bessie in the half light 
making her little supplication to Torpenhow. 
She was kneeling by his side, and her hands 
were clasped across his knee. 

“I know — I know,’’ she said thickly. 
“ ’Tisn’t right o’ me to do this, but I can’t help 
it; and you were so kind — so kind; and you 
never took any notice o’ me. And I’ve 
mended all your things so carefully, — I did. 
Oh, please, ’tisn’t as if I was asking you to 
marry me. I wouldn’t think of it. But cou — 
couldn’t you take and live with me till Miss 
Right comes along? I’m only Miss Wrong, I 
know, but I’d work my hands to the bare bone 
for you. And I’m not ugly to look at. Say 
you will?’’ 

Dick hardly recognized Torpenhow’s voice in 
reply : 

“But look here. It’s no use. I’m liable to 
be ordered off anywhere at a minute’s notice if 
a war breaks out. At a minute’s notice — 
dear. ’ ’ 

“What does that matter? Until you go. then. 
Until you go. ’Tisn’t much I’m" asking, and 
— you don’t know how good I can cook.” 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


145 


She had put an arm around his neck and was 
drawing- his head down. 

“Until — I — go, then.” 

“Torp, ” said Dick across the landing. . He 
could hardly steady his voice. “Come here a 
minute, old man. I’m in trouble. Heaven 
send he’ll listen to me!” There was some- 
thing very like an oath from Bessie’s lips. She 
was afraid of Dick, and disappeared down the 
staircase in panic, but it seemed an age before 
Torpenhow entered the studio. He went to 
the mantelpiece, buried his head on his arms, 
and groaned like a wounded bull. 

“What the devil right have you to inter- 
fere?” he said at last. 

“Who’s interfering with which? Your own 
sense told you long ago you couldn’t be such a 
fool. It was a tough rack, St. Anthony, but 
you’re all right now. ” 

“I oughtn’t to have seen her moving about 
these rooms as if they belonged to her. That’s 
what upset me. It gives a lonely man a sort 
of hankering, doesn’t it?” said Torpenhow 
piteously. 

“Now you talk sense. It does. But, since 
you aren’t in a condition to discuss the disad- 
vantages of double housekeeping, do you know 
what you’re going to do?” 

“I don’t. I wish I did.” 

“You’re going away for a season on a bril- 
liant tour to regain tone. You’re going to 
Brighton, or Scarborough, or Prawle Point, to 
see the ships go by. And you’re going at 
once. Isn’t it odd? I’ll take care of Binkie, 
10 


J46 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


"but out you go immediately. Never resist the 
devil. He holds the bank. Fly from him. 
Pack your things and go. ” 

“I believe you’re right. Where shall I go?’* 

“And you call yourself a special correspon- 
dent! Pack first and inquire afterward.” 

An hour later Torpenhow was dispatched 
into the night in a hansom. “You’ll probably 
think of some place to go while you’re moving, ’ ’ 
said Dick. “Go to Euston, to begin with, and 
— oh, yes — get drunk to-night.” 

He returned to the studio, and lighted more 
candles, for he found the room very dark. 

“Oh, you Jezebel! you futile little Jezebel! 
Won’t you hate me to-morrow? — Binkie, come 
here. ’ ’ 

Binkie turned over on his back on the hearth- 
rug, and Dick stirred him with a meditative 
foot. 

“I said she was not immoral. I was wrong. 
She said she could cook. That showed pre- 
meditated sin. Oh, Binkie, if you are a man 
you will go to perdition; but if you are a 
woman, and say that you can cook, you will 
go to a much worse place. ’ ’ 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


147 


CHAPTER IX. 

What’s yon that follows at my side? — 

The foe that ye must fight, my lord. — 

That hirples swift as I can ride? — 

The shadow of the night, my lord. — 

Then wheel my horse against the foe! — 

He’s down and overpast, my lord. 

Ye war against the sunset glow: 

The darkness gathers fast, my lord. 

— The Fight of Heriot’s Ford. 

“This is a cheerful life,” said Dick, some 
days later. “Torp’s away; Bessie hates me; 
I can’t get at the notion of the Melancolia; 
Maisie’s letters are scrappy; and I believe I 
have indigestion. What gives a man pains 
across his head and spots before his eyes, 
Binkie? Shall us take some liver pills?” 

Dick had just gone through a lively scene 
with Bessie. She had for the fiftieth time 
reproached him for sending Torpenhow away. 
She explained her enduring hatred for Dick, 
and made it clear to him that she only sat for 
the sake of his money. “And Mr. Torpen- 
how’s ten times a better man than you,” she 
concluded* 

“He is. That’s why he went away. I 
should have stayed and made love to you.” 

The girl sat with her chin on her hand, scowl- 
ing. “To me! I’d like to catch you! If I 


148 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


wasn’t afraid o’ being hung I’d kill you. That’s 
what I’d do. D’you believe me?” 

Dick smiled wearily. It is not pleasant to 
live in the company of a notion that will not 
work out, a fox-terrier that cannot talk, and a 
woman that talks too much. He would have 
answered, but at that moment there unrolled 
itself from one corner of the studio a veil, as it 
were, of the flimsiest gauze. Dick rubbed his 
eyes, but the gray haze would not go. 

“This is disgraceful indigestion. Binkie, we 
will go to a medicine-man. We can’t have 
our eyes interfered with, for by these we get 
our bread ; also mutton-chop bones for little 
dogs. ” 

He was an affable local practitioner with 
white hair, and he said nothing till Dick began 
to describe the gray film in the studio. 

“We all want a little patching and repairing 
from time to time,” he chirped. “Like a 
ship, my dear sir — exactly like a ship. Some- 
times the hull is out of order, and we consult 
the surgeon; sometimes the rigging, and then 
I advise ; sometimes the engines, and we go to 
the brain-specialist ; sometimes the look-out on 
the bridge is tired, and then we see an oculist. 
I should recommend you to see an oculist. A 
little patching and repairing from time to time 
is all we want. An oculist, by all means. ” 

Dick sought an oculist — the best in London. 
He was certain that the local practitioner did 
not know anything about his trade, and more 
certain that Maisie would laugh at him if he 
had to take to spectacles. 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


149 


“I’ve neglected the warnings of my lord the 
stomach too long. Hence these spots before 
the eyes, Binkie. I can see as well as I ever 
could.” 

As he entered the dark hall that led to the 
consulting room a man cannoned against him. 
Dick saw the face as it hurried out into the 
street. 

“That’s the writer- type. He has the same 
modeling of the forehead as Torp. He looks 
very sick. Probably heard something he didn ’ t 
like. ” 

Even as he thought a great fear came upon 
Dick, a fear that made him hold his breath as 
he walked into the oculist’s waiting room, 
with the heavy carved furniture, the dark green 
paper, and the sober-hued prints on the wall. 
He recognized a reproduction of one of his own 
sketches. 

Many people were waiting their turn before 
him. His eye was caught by a flaming red- 
and-gold Chri.stmas-carol book. Little children 
came to that eye doctor and they needed large 
type amusement. 

“That’s idolatrous bad Art,’’ he said, draw- 
ing the book toward himself. “From the 
anatomy of the angels, it has been made in 
Germany.’’ He opened it mechanically, and 
there leaped to his eyes a verse printed in red 
ink: 


“The next good joy that Mary had, 
It was the joy of three, 

To see her good Son Jesus Christ 
Making the blind to' see; 


150 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


Making the blind to see, good Lord, 
And happy may we be. 

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost 
To all eternity ! 


Dick read and re-read the verse till his turn 
came, and the doctor was bending above him 
seated in an arm-chair. The blaze of a gas 
microscope in his eyes made him wince. The 
doctor’s hand touched the scar of the sword- 
cut on Dick’s head, and Dick explained briefly 
how he had come by it. When the flame was 
removed Dick saw the doctor’s face, and the 
fear came upon him again. The doctor 
wrapped himself in a mist of words. Dick 
caught allusions to “scar,” “frontal bone,” 
“optic nerve,” “extreme caution,” and the 
“avoidance of mental anxiety.” 

“Verdict?” he said faintly. “My business 
is painting, and I daren’t waste time. What 
do you make of it?” 

Again the whirl of words, but this time they 
conveyed a meaning. 

“Can you give me anything to drink?” 

Many sentences were pronounced in that 
darkened room, and the prisoners often needed 
cheering. Dick found a glass of liqueur 
brandy in his hand. 

“As far as I can gather,” he said, coughing, 
above the spirit, “you call it decay of the 
optic nerve, or something, and therefore hope- 
less. What is m}’’ time-limit, avoiding all 
strain and worry?” 

“Perhaps one year.” 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


151 


“My God! And if I don’t take care of my- 
self?’’ 

“I really could not say. One cannot ascer- 
tain the exact amount of injury inflicted by 
the sword-cut. The scar is an old one, and — 
exposure to the strong light of the desert, did 
you sa}^? — with excessive application to fine 
work? I really could not say.’’ 

“X beg your pardon, but it has come without 
any warning. If you will let me, I’ll sit here 
for a minute, and then I’ll go. You have been 
very good in telling me the truth. Without 
any warning; without any warning. Thanks.’’ 

Dick went into the street, and was raptur- 
ously received by Binkie. “We’ve got it very 
badly, little dog! Just as badly as we can get 
it. We’ll go to the Park to think it out.’’ 

They headed for a certain tree that Dick 
knew well, and they sat down to think, because 
his legs were trembling under him and there 
was cold fear at the pit of his stomach. 

“How could it have come without any warn- 
ing? It’s as sudden as being shot. It’s the 
living death, Binkie. We’re to be shut up in 
the dark in one year if we’re careful, and we 
shan’t see anybody, and we shall never have 
anything we want, not though we live to be a 
hundred.’’ Binkie wagged his tail joyously. 
“Binkie, we must think. Let’s see how it 
feels to be blind.’’ Dick shut his eyes, and 
flaming commas and Catherine-wheels floated 
inside the lids. Yet when he looked across 
the Park the scope of his vision was not con- 
tracted. He could see perfectly, until a pro- 


152 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


cession of slow-wheeling fireworks defiled 
across his eyeballs. 

“Little dorglums, we aren’t at all well. 
Let’s go home. If only Torp were back, 
now ! ’ ’ 

But Torpenhow was in the south of Eng- 
land, inspecting dock- yards in the company of 
the Nilghai. His letters were brief and full 
of mystery. 

Dick had never asked anybody to help him 
in his joys or his sorrows. He argued in the 
loneliness of the studio, henceforward to be 
decorated^ with a film of gray gauze in one 
corner, that, if his fate were blindness, all the 
Torpenhows in the world could not save him. 
“I can’t call him off his trip to sit down and 
sympathize with me. I must pull through 
the business alone,’’ he said. He was lying 
on the sofa, eating his mustache and wonder- 
ing what the darkness of the night would be 
like. Then came to his mind the memory of a 
quaint scene in the Soudan. A soldier had 
been nearly hacked in two by a broad-bladed 
Arab spear. For one instant the man felt no 
pain. Looking down, he saw that his life 
blood was ^oing from him. The stupid bewil- 
derment on his face was so intensely comic- 
that both Dick and Torpenhow, still panting 
and unstrung from a fight for life, had roared 
with laughter, in which the man seemed as if 
he would join, but, as his lips parted in a 
sleepish grin, the agony of death came upon 
him, and he pitched grunting at their feet. 
Dick laughed agaih, remembering the horror. 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


153 


It seemed so exactly like his own case. “But 
I have a little more time allowed me,” he 
said. He paced up and down the room, 
quietly at first, but afterward with the hur- 
ried feet of fear. It was as though a black 
shadow stood at his elbow and urged him to 
go forward; and there were only weaving 
circles and floating pin-dots before his eyes. 

“We must be calm, Binkie; we must be 
calm. ’ ’ He talked aloud for the sake of dis- 
traction. “This isn’t nice at all. What shall 
we do? We must do something. Our time is 
short. I shouldn’t have believed that this 
morning; but now things are different. 
Binkie, where was Moses when the light went 
out?’’ 

Binkie smiled from ear to ear, as a well-bred 
terrier should, but made no suggestion. 

“ ‘Were there but world enough and time. 
This coyness, Binkie, were no crime. But at 

my back I always hear ’ ’’ He wiped his 

forehead, which was unpleasantly damp. 
“What can I do? What can I do? I haven’t 
any notions left, and I can’t think con- 
nectedly, but I must do something, or I shall 
go off my head. ’’ 

The hurried walk recommenced, Dick stop- 
ping every now and again to drag forth long- 
neglected canvases and old note-books ; for he 
turned to his work by instinct, as a thing that 
could not fail. “Yon won’t do, and you 
won’t do,” he said, at each inspection. “No 
more soldiers. I couldn’t paint ’em. Sud- 


154 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


den death comes home too early, and this is 
battle and murder both for me.” 

The day was failing, and Dick thought for 
a moment that the twilight of the blind had 
come upon him unawares. * * Allah Almighty ! ’ ’ 
he cried despairingly, “help me through the 
time of waiting, and I won’t whine when my 
punishment comes. What can I do now, 
before the light goes?” 

There was no answer. Dick waited till he 
could regain some sort of control over him- 
self. His hands were shaking, and he prided 
himself on their steadiness; he could feel that 
his lips were quivering, and the sweat was 
running down his face. He was lashed by 
fear, driven forward by the desire to get to 
work at once and accomplish something, and 
maddened by the refusal of his brain to do 
more than repeat the news that he was about 
to go blind. ‘‘It’s a humiliating exhibition,” 
he thought, “and I’m glad Torp isn’t here to 
see. The doctor said I was to avoid mental 
worry. Come here and let me pet you, 
Binkie. ” 

The little dog yelped because Dick nearly 
squeezed the bark out of him. Then he 
heard the man speaking in the twilight, and, 
doglike, understood that his trouble stood off 
from him. 

“Allah is good, Binkie. Not quite so gentle 
as we could wish, but we’ll discuss that later. 
I think I see my way to it now. All those 
studies of Bessie’s head were nonsense, and 
they nearly brought your master into a scrape. 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


155 


I hold the notion now as clear as crystal — ‘the 
Melancolia that transcends all wit.’ There 
shall be Maisie in that head, because I shall 
never get Maisie, and Bess, of course, because 
she knows all about Melancolia, though she 
doesn’t know she knows; and there shall be 
some drawing in it, and it shall all end up with 
a laugh. That’s for myself. Shall she giggle 
or grin? No, she shall laugh right out of the 
canvas, and every man and woman that ever 
had a sorrow of their own shall — what is it the 
poem says? 

“ ‘Understand the speech and feel a stir 
Of fellowship in all disastrous fight.! 

‘In all disastrous fight?’ That’s better than 
painting the thing merely to pique Maisie. I 
can do it now because I have it inside me. 
Binkie, I’m going to hold you up by your tail. 
You’re an omen. Come here. ” 

Binkie swung head downward for a moment 
without speaking. 

“Rather like holding a guinea-pig; but 
you’re a brave little dog. and you don’t yelp 
when you’re maltreated. It is an omen.’’ 

Binkie went to his own chair, and as often as 
he looked saw Dick walking up and down, 
rubbing his hands and chuckling. That night 
Dick wrote a letter to Maisie full of the ten- 
derest regard for her health, but saying very 
little about his own, and dreamed of the Mel- 
ancolia to be born. Not until morning did he 
remember that something might happen to 
him in the future. 


156 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


He fell to work, whistling softly, and was 
swallowed up in the clean, clear joy of crea- 
tion, which does not come to man too often, 
lest he should consider himself the equal of 
his God and so refuse to die at the appointed 
time. He forgot Maisie, Torpenhow, and 
Binkie at hi’s feet, but remembered to stir 
Bessie, who needed very little stirring, into 
tremendous rage, that he might watch the 
smoldering lights in her eyes. He threw 
himself without reservation into his work, and 
did not think of the doom that was to overtake 
him, for he was possessed with his notion, and 
the things of this world had no power upon 
him. 

“You’re pleased to-day,’’ said Bessie. 

Dick waved his mahl-stick in mystic circles 
and went to the sideboard for a drink. In the 
evening, when the exultation of the day had 
died down, he went to the sideboard again, 
and after some visits became convinced that 
the eye-doctor was a liar, since he still could 
see everything very clearly. He was of opin- 
ion that he would even make a home for 
Maisie, and that, whether she liked it or not,' 
she should be his wife. The mood passed next 
morning, but the sideboard and all upon it 
remained for his comfort. Again he set to 
work, and his eyes troubled him with spots 
and dashes and blurs till he had taken counsel 
with the sideboard, and the Melancolia both 
on the canvas and in his own mind appeared 
lovelier than ever. There was a delightful 
sense of irresponsibility upon him, such as 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


157 


they feel who, walking among their fellow- 
men, know that the death-sentence of disease 
is upon them, and, since fear is but waste of 
the little time left, are riotously happy. The 
days passed without event. Bessie arrived 
punctually always, and, though her voice 
seemed to Dick to come from a distance, her 
face was always very near, and the Melancolia 
began to flame on the canvas, in the likeness 
of a woman who had known all the sorrow in 
the world and was laughing at it. It was true 
that the corners of the studio draped them- 
selves in gray film and retired into the dark- 
ness, that the spots in his eyes and the pains 
across his head were very troublesome, and 
that Maisie’s letters were hard to read and 
harder still to answer. He could not tell her 
of his trouble, and he could not laugh at her 
accounts of her own Melancolia, which was 
always going to be finished. But the furious 
days of toil and the nights of wild dreams 
made amends for all, and the sideboard was 
his best friend on earth. Bessie was singu- 
larly dull. She used to shriek with rage when 
Dick stared at her between half-closed eyes. 
Now she sulked, or watched him with disgust, 
saying very little. 

Torpenhow had been absent for six weeks. 
An incoherent note heralded his return. 
“News! great news!” he said. “The Nil- 
ghai knows, and so does the Keneu. We’re all 
back on Thursday. Get lunch and clean your 
accouterments.” 

Dick showed Bessie the letter, and she 


158 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


abused him for that he had ever sent Torpen- 
how away and ruined her life. 

“Well,” said Dick brutally, “you’re better 
as you are, instead of making love to some 
drunken beast in the street.” He felt that he 
had rescued Torpenhow from great temptation. 

“I don’t know if that’s any worse than sit- 
ting to a drunken beast in a studio. You 
haven’t been .sober for three weeks. You’ve 
been soaking the whole time ; and yet you pre- 
tend you’re better than me!” 

“What d’you mean?” said Dick. 

“Mean! You’ll see when Mr. Torpenhow 
comes back. ’ ’ 

It was not long to wait. Torpenhow met 
Bessie on the staircase without a sign of feeling. 
He had news that was more to him than many 
Bessies, and the Keneu and the Nilghai were 
tramping behind him, calling for Dick. 

“Drinking like a fish,” Bessie whispered. 
“He’s been at it for nearly a month. ” She 
followed the men stealthily to hear judgment 
done. 

They came into the studio, rejoicing, to be 
welcomed over — effusively by a drawn, lined, 
shrunken, haggard wreck — unshaven, blue- 
white about the nostrils, stooping in the shoul- 
ders, and peering under his eyebrows nerv- 
ously. The drink had been at work as stead- 
ily as Dick. 

“Is this you?” said Torpenhow. 

“All that’s left of me. Sit down. Binkie’s 
quite well, and I’ve been doing some good 
work.” He reeled where he stood. 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


159 


“You’ve done some of the worst work you’ve 
ever done in your life. Man alive, you’re “ 

Torpenhow turned to his companions appeal- 
ingly, and they left the room to find lunch else- 
where. Then he spoke ; but, since the reproof 
of a friend is much too sacred and intimate a 
thing to be printed, and since Torpenhow used 
figures and metaphors which were unseemly, 
and contempt untranslatable, it will never be 
known what was actually said to Dick, who 
blinked and winked and picked at his hands. 
After a time the culprit began to feel the need 
of a little self-respect. He was quite sure that 
he had not in any way departed from virtue, 
and there were reasons, too, of which Torpen- 
how knew nothing. He would explain. 

He rose, tried to straighten his shoulders, 
and spoke to the face he could hardly see. 

“You are right,’’ he said. “But I am right, 
too. After you went away I had some trouble 
with my eyes. So I went to an oculist, and he 
turned a gasogene — I mean a gas-engine — into 
my eyes. That was very long ago. He said, 
‘Scar on the head — sword-cut and optic nerve.’ 
Make a note of that. So I am going blind. 
I have some work to do before I go blind, and 
I suppose that I must do it. I cannot see 
much now, but I can see best when I am drunk. 
I did not know I was drunk till I was told, but 
I must go on with my work. If you want to 
see it, there it is.’’ He pointed to the all but 
completed Melancolia and looked for applause. 

Torpenhow said nothing, and Dick began to 
whimper feebly, for joy at seeing Torpenhow 


160 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


again, for grief at misdeeds — if, indeed, they 
were misdeeds — that made Torpenhow remote 
and unsympathetic, and for childish vanity 
hurt, since Torpenhow had not given a word of 
praise to his wonderful picture. 

Bessie looked through the keyhole after a 
long pause, and saw the two walking up and 
down as usual, Torpenhow’s hand on Dick’s 
shoulder. Hereat she said something so im- 
proper that it shocked even Binkie, who was 
dribbling patiently on the landing with the 
hope of seeing his master again. 



" I'orpenhow met Bessie on the staircase.” — Page 158. 

The Light That Failed. 




THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


161 


CHAPTER X. 

The lark will make her hymn to God, 

The partridge call her brood, 

While I forget the heath I trod, 

The fields wherein I stood. 

'Tis dule to know not night from morn. 

But deeper dule to know 
I can but hear the hunter’s horn 
That once I used to blow. 

— The Only Son. 

It was the third day after Torpenhow’s 
return, and his heart was heavy. 

“Do you mean to tell me that you can’t see 
without whisky? It’s generally the other way 
about. ’ ’ 

“Can a drunkard swear on his honor?’’ said 
Dick. 

“Yes, if he has been as good a man as you. “ 

“Then I give you my word of honor,’’ said 
Dick, speaking hurriedly through parched lips. 
“Old man, I can hardly see your face now. 
You’ve kept me sober for two days, — if I ever 
was drunk, — and I’ve done no work. Don’t 
keep me back any more. I don’t know when 
my eyes may give out. The spots and dots 
and the pains and things are crowding worse 
than ever. I swear I can see all right when 
I’m — when I’m moderately screwed, as you 
say. Give me three more sittings from Bessie 

11 Light that Failed 


162 THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 

and all the — stuff I want, and the picture will 
be done. I can’t kill myself in three days. 
It only means a touch of D. T. at the worst. 

“If I give you three days more will you 
promise me to stop work and — the other thing, 
whether the picture’s finished or not?’’ 

“I can’t. You don’t know what that pict- 
ure means to me. But surely you could get 
the Nilghai to help you, and knock me down 
and tie me up. I shouldn’t fight for the 
whisky, but I should for the work.’’ 

“Goon, then. I give you three days; but 
you’re nearly breaking my heart.’’ 

Dick returned to his work, toiling as one 
possessed; and the yellow devil of whisky 
stood by him and chased away the spots in his 
eyes. The Melancolia was nearly finished, 
and was all or nearly all that he had hoped she 
would be. Dick jested with Bessie, who re- 
minded him that he was “a drunken beast ;’’ 
but the reproof did not move him. 

“You can’t understand, Bess. We are in 
sight of land now, and soon we shall lie back 
and think about what we’ve done. ITl give 
you three months’ pay when the picture’s 
finished, and next time I have any more work 
in hand — but that doesn’t matter. Won’t three 
months’ pay make you hate me less?’’ 

“No, it won’t! I hate you, and I’ll go on 
hating you. Mr. Torpenhow won’t speak to 
me any more. He’s always looking at map- 
things and red-backed books.’’ 

Bessie did not say that she had again laid 
siege to Torpenhow, or that he had at the end 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


163 


of her passionate pleading picked her up, given 
her a kiss, and put her outside the door with a 
recommendation not to be a little fool. He 
spent most of his time in the company of the 
Nilghai, and their talk was of war in the near 
future, the hiring of transports, and secret 
preparations among the dock-yards. He did 
not care to see Dick till the picture was fin- 
ished. 

“He’s doing first-class work,” he said to the 
Nilghai, “and it’s quite out of his regular line. 
But, for the matter of that, so’s his infernal 
drinking.” 

“Nevermind. Leave him alone. When he 
has come to his senses again we’ll carry him 
ofi: from this place and let him breathe clean 
air. Poor Dick! I don’t envy you, Torp, 
when his eyes fail.” 

“Yes, it will be a case of ‘God help the man 
who’s chained to our Davie. ’ The worst is 
that we don’t know when it will happen; and I 
believe the uncertainty and the waiting have 
sent Dick to the whisky more than anything 
else. ” 

“How the Arab who cut his head open 
would grin if he knew!” 

“He’s at perfect liberty to grin if he can. 
He’s dead. That’s poor consolation now.” 

In the afternoon of the third day Torpenhow 
heard Dick calling for him. “All finished !’^ 
he shouted. “I’ve done it! Come in! Isn’t 
she a beauty? Isn’t she a darling? I’ve been 
down to hell to get her; but isn’t she worth 
it?” 


164 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


Torpenhow looked at the head of a woman 
who laughed — a full-lipped, hollow-eyed 
woman who laughed from out of the canvas as 
Dick had intended she should. 

“Who taught you how to do it?” said Tor- 
penhow. “The touch and notion have nothing 
to do with your regular v/ork. What a face 
it is! What eyes, and what insolence !’’ Un- 
consciously he threw back his head and 
laughed with her. “She’s seen the game 
played out, — I don’t think she had a good time 
of it, — and now she doesn’t care. Isn’t that 
the idea?’’ 

“Exactly. ’’ 

“Where did you get the mouth and chin 
from? They don’t belong to Bess.” 

“They’re — some one else’s. But isn’t it 
good? Isn’t it thundering good? Wasn’t it 
worth the whisky? I did it. Alone I did it, 
and it’s the best I can do.’’ He drew his 
breath sharply, and whispered, “Just God! 
what could I not do ten years hence, if I can 
do this now ! By the way, what do you think 
of it, Bess?’’ 

The girl was biting her lips. She loathed 
Torpenhow because he had taken no notice of 
her. 

“I think it’s just the horridest, beastliest 
thing I ever saw,’’ she answered, and she 
turned away. 

“More than you will be of that way of think- 
ing, young woman. — Dick, there’s a sort of 
murderous, viperine suggestion in the poise 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


165 


of the head that I don’t understand,” said Tor- 
penhow. 

“That’s trick-work,’’ said Dick, chuckling 
with delight of being completely understood. 
‘ ‘ I couldn ’ t resist one little bit of sheer swagger. 
It’s a French trick, and you wouldn’t under- 
stand; but it’s got at by slewing round the 
head a trifle, and a tiny, tiny foreshortening 
of one side of the face from the angle of the 
chin to the top of the left ear. That, and 
deepening the shadow under the lobe of the 
ear. It was flagrant trick- work; but, having 
the notion fixed, I felt entitled to play with it. 
Oh, you beauty!’’ 

“Amen! She is a beauty. I can feel it. ’’ 

“So will every man who has any sorrow of 
his own,’’ said Dick, slapping his thigh. “He 
shall see his trouble there, and, by the Lord 
Harry, just when he’s feeling properly sorry 
for himself he shall throw back his head and 
laugh — as she is laughing. I’ve put the life 
of my heart and the light of my eyes into her, 
and I don’t care what comes. . . I’m tired — 
awfully tired. I think I’ll get to sleep. Take 
away the whisky. It has served its turn. Oh, 
and give Bessie thirty-six quid, and three over 
for luck. Cover the picture.’’ 

He was asleep in the long chair, his face 
white and haggard, almost before he had fin- 
ished the sentence. Bessie tried to take Tor- 
penhow’s hand. “Aren’t you never going to 
speak to me any more?’’ she said; but Torpen- 
how was looking at Dick. 

“What a stock of vanity the man has! I’ll 


166 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


take him in hand to-morrow and make much 
of him. He deserves it. Eh! what was that, 
Bess?” 

‘‘Nothing. ITl put things tidy here a little, 
and then I’ll go. You couldn’t give me that 
three months’ pay now, could you? He said 
you were to. ” 

Torpenhow gave her a check and went to his 
own rooms, Bessie faithfully tidied up the 
studio, set the door ajar for flight, emptied 
half a bottle of turpentine on a duster, and 
began to scrub the face of the Melancolia 
viciously. The paint did not smudge quickly 
enough. She took a pallete-knife and scraped, 
following each stroke with the wet duster. In 
five minutes the picture was a formless, 
scarred muddle of colors. She threw the 
paint-stained duster into the studio stove, 
stuck out her tongue at the sleeper, and whis- 
pered, ‘‘Bilked!” as she turned to run down 
the staircase. She would never see Torpen- 
how any more, but she had at least done harm 
to the man who had come between her and her 
desire, and who used to make fun of her. 
Cashing the check was the very cream of the 
jest to Bessie. Then the little privateer sailed 
across the Thames, to be swallowed up in the 
gray wilderness of South-the-water. 

Dick slept till late into the evening, when 
Torpenhow dragged him off to bed. His eyes 
were as bright as his voice was hoarse. “Let’s 
have another look at the picture,” he said, as 
insistently as a child. 

“You — go — to — bed,” said Torpenhow. 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


167 


“You aren’t at all well, though you mayn’t 
know it. You’re as jumpy as a cat.” 

‘‘I reform to-morrow. Good-night.” 

As he repassed through the studio, Torpen- 
how lifted the cloth above the picture, and al- 
most betrayed himself by outcries: “Wiped 
out ! scraped out and turped out ! If Dick knows 
this to-night he’ll go perfectly mad. He’s on 
the verge of jumps as it is. That’s Bess — the 
little fiend!. Only a woman could have done 
that! with the ink not dry on the cheek, too! 
Dick will be raving mad to-morrow. It was 
all my fault for trying to help gutter-devils. 
Oh, my poor Dick, the Lord is hitting you very 
hard!” 

Dick could not sleep that night, partly for 
pure joy, and partly because the well-known 
Catherine-wheels inside his eyes had given 
place to crackling volcanoes of many-colored 
fire. “Spout away,” he said, aloud. “I’ve 
done my work, and now you can do what you 
please.” He lay still, staring at the ceiling, 
the long-pent-up delirium of drink in his veins, 
his brain on fire with racing thoughts that 
would not stay to be considered, and his hands 
crisped and dry. He had just discovered that 
he was painting the face of the Melancolia on 
a revolving dome ribbed with millions of lights, 
and that all his wondrous thoughts stood em- 
bodied hundreds of feet below his tiny swing- 
ing plank, shouting together in his honor, 
when comething cracked inside his temples like 
an overstrained bow-string, the glittering 


168 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


dome broke inward, and he was alone in the 
thick night. 

“ITl go to sleep. The room’s very dark. 
Let’s light a lamp and see how the Melancolia 
looks. There ought to have been a moon. ” 

It was then that Torpenhow heard his name 
called by a voice that he did not know — in the 
rattling accents of deadly fear. 

“He’s looked at the picture,’’ was his first 
thought, as he hurried into the bedroom and 
found Dick sitting up and beating the air with 
his hands. 

“Torp! Torp! Where are you? For pity’s 
sake, come to me!’’ 

“What’s the matter?’’ 

Dick clutched at his shoulder. “Matter! 
I’ve been lying here for hours in the dark, 
and you never heard me. Torp, old man, 
don’t go away. I’m all in the dark. In the 
dark, I tell you!” 

Torpenhow held the candle within a foot of 
Dick’s eyes, but there was no light in those 
eyes. He lit the gas, and Dick heard the 
flame catch. The grip of his fingers on Tor- 
penhow’s shoulder made Torpenhow wince. 

“Don’t leave me. You wouldn’t leave me 
alone now, would you? I can’t see. D’you 
understand? It’s black, — quite black, — and I 
feel as if I was falling through it all.’’ 

“Steady does it!’’ Torpenhow put his arm 
round Dick and instinctively began to rock 
him gently to and fro. 

“That’s good. Now don’t talk. If I keep 
very quiet for a while, this darkness will lift. 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED 


It J^eems juston the point of breaking. H’sh !” 
Dick knit his brows and stared desperately in 
front of him. The night air was chilling Tor- 
penhow’s toes. 

“Can you stay like that a minute?” he 
said. “ITl get my dressing-gown and some 
slippers. ” 

Dick clutched the bed-head with both hands 
and waited for the darkness to clear away. 
“What a time you’ve been!” he cried, when 
Torpenhow returned. “It’s as black as ever. 
And what are you banging about in the door- 
way?” 

“Long chair, — horse-blanket, — pillow. Go- 
ing to sleep by you. Lie down now; you’ll 
be better in the morning. ’ ’ 

“I shan’t!” The voice rose to a wail. 
“My God! I’m blind! I’m blind, and the 
darkness will never go away.” He made as 
if to leap from the bed, but Torpenhow’s arms 
were round him, and Torpenhow’s chin was 
on his shoulder, and his breath was squeezed 
out of him. He could only gasp, “Blind!” 
and wriggle feebly. 

“Steady, Dickie, steady!” said the deep voice 
in his ear, and the grip tightened! “Bite on 
the bullet, old man, and don’t let them think 
you’re afraid.” The grip could draw no 
closer. Both men were breathing heavily. 
Dick threw his head from side to side and 
groaned. 

“Let me go,” he panted. “You’re crack- 
ing my ribs. We — we mustn’t let them think 

12 Light that Failed 


170 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


we’re afraid, must we — all the powers of dark- 
ness and that lot?” 

“Lie down. It’s all over now.” 

“Yes,” said Dick, obediently. “But would 
you mind letting me hold your hand? I feel 
as if I wanted something to hold on to. One 
drops through the dark so.” 

Torpenhow thrust out a large and hairy paw 
from the long chair. Dick clutched it tightly, 
and in half an hour had fallen asleep. Tor- 
penhow withdrew his hand, and, stooping over 
Dick, kissed him lightly on the forehead, as 
men do sometimes kiss a wounded comrade in 
the hour of death, to ease his departure. 

In the gray dawn Torpenhow heard Dick 
talking to himself. He was adrift on the 
shoreless tides of delirium, speaking very 
quickly : 

“It’s a pity— a great pity. But it’s helped, 
and it must be eaten. Master George. Suffi- 
cient unto the day is the blindness thereof, and, 
further, putting aside all Melancolias and false 
humors, it is of obvious notoriety — such as 
mine was— that the queen can do no wrong. 
Torp doesn’t know that. I’ll tell him when 
we’re a little farther into the desert. What a 
bungle those boatmen are making of the 
steamer ropes! They’ll have that four-inch 
hawser chafed through in a minute. I told 
you so! There she goes! White foam on 
green water, and the steamer slewing round. 
How good that looks! I’ll sketch it. No. I 
can’t. I’m afflicted with ophthalmia. That 
was one of the ten plagues of Egypt, and it 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


171 


extends np the Nile in the shape of cataract. 
Ha! that’s a joke, Torp. Laugh, you graven 
image, and stand clear of the hawser. . . . It’ll 
knock you into the water and make your dress 
all dirty, Maisie dear.” 

“Oh!” said Torpenhow. ‘*This happened 
before that night on the river. ’ ’ 

‘‘She’ll be sure to say it’s my fault if you get 
muddy, and you’re quite near enough to the 
breakwater. Maisie, that’s not fair. Ah! 
I knew you’d miss. Low and to the left, 
dear. But you’ve no conviction. Everything 
in the world except conviction. Don’t be 
angry, darling. I’d cut my hand off if it would 
give you an5^thing more than obstinacy. My 
right hand, if it would serve.” 

‘‘Now we mustn’t listen. Here’s an island 
shouting across seas of misunderstanding with 
a vengeance. But it’s shouting truth, I 
fancy,” said Torpenhow. 

The babble continued. It all bore upon 
Maisie. Sometimes Dick lectured at length 
on his craft, then he cursed himself for his 
folly in being enslaved. He pleaded to Maisie 
for a kiss — only one kiss — before she went 
away. He called to her to come back from 
Vitry-sur-Marne, if she would; but through 
all his ravings he bade heaven and earth wit- 
ness that the queen could do no wrong. 

Torpenhow listened attentively, and learned 
every detail of Dick’s life that had been hidden 
from him. For three days Dick raved through 
his past, and then slept a natural sleep. 

‘‘What a strain he has been running under, 


172 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


poor chap!” said Torpenhow. “Dick, of all 
men, handing himself over like a dog! And I 
was lecturing him on arrogance ! I ought to 
have known that it was no use to judge a man. 
But I did it. What a demon that girl must be! 
Dick’s given her his life, — confound him ! —and 
she’s given him one kiss, apparently.” 

“Torp, ” said Dick from the bed, “go out for 
a walk. You’ve been here too long. I’ll get 
up. Hi! This is annoying. I can’t dress 
myself. Oh, it’s too absurd!” 

Torpenhow helped him into his clothes and 
led him to the big chair in the studio. He sat 
quietly waiting under strained nerves for the 
darkness to lift. It did not lift that day, or 
the next. Dick adventured on a voyage round 
the walls. He hit his shins against the stove, 
and this suggested to him that it would be 
better to crawl on all-fours, one hand in front 
of him. Torpenhow found him on the floor. 

“I’m trying to get the geography of my new 
possessions,” said he. “D’you remember that 
nigger you gouged in the square? Pity you 
didn’t keep the odd eye. It would have been 
useful. Any letters for me? Give me all the 
ones in fat gray envelopes with a sort of crown 
thing outside. They’re of no importance.” 

Torpenhow gave him a letter with a black 
M. on the envelope flap. Dick put it into his 
pocket. There was nothing in it that Torpen- 
how might not have read, but it belonged to 
himself and to Maisie, who would never belong 
to him. 

“When she finds that I don’t write, she’ll 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


173 


Stop writing. It’s better so. I couldn’t be 
any use to her now,” Dick argued, and the 
tempter suggested that he should make known 
his condition. Every nerve in him revolted. 
“I have fallen low enough already. I’m not 
going to beg for pity. Besides, it would be 
cruel to her.” He strove to put Maisie out of 
his thoughts ; but the blind have many oppor- 
tunities for thinking, and as the tides of his 
strength came back to him in the long employ- 
less days of dead darkness, Dick’s soul w^as 
troubled to the core. Another letter, and 
another, came from Maisie. Then there was 
silence, and Dick sat by the window with the 
pulse of summer in the air, and pictured her 
being won by another man, stronger than him- 
self. His imagination, the keener for the 
dark background it worked against, spared 
him no single detail that might send him rag- 
ing up and down the studio, to stumble over 
the stove, that seemed to be in four places at 
once. Worst of all, tobacco would not taste in 
the dark. The arrogance of the man had dis- 
appeared, and in its place were settled despair 
that Torpenhow knew, and blind passion that 
Dick confided to his pillow at night. The 
intervals between the paroxysms were filled 
with intolerable wailing and the weight of 
intolerable darkness. 

“Come out into the Park,” said Torpenhow. 
“You haven’t stirred out since the begin- 
'ningof things.” 

“What’s the use? There’s no movement in 
the dark; and, besides,” — he paused irreso- 


174 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


lutely at the head of the stairs, — “something 
will run over me.” 

“Not if I’m with you. Proceed gingerly.” 
The roar of the streets filled Dick with nervous 
terror, and he clung to Torpenhow’s arm. 
“Fancy having to feel for a gutter with your 
foot!” he said, petulantly, as he turned into 
the Park. “Let’s curse God and die.” 

“Sentries are forbidden to pay unauthorized 
compliments. By Jove, there are the Guards!” 

Dick’s figure straightened. “Let’s get near 
'em. Let’s go in and look. Let’s get on the 
grass and run. I can smell the trees.” 

“Mind the low railing. That’s all right !” 
Torpenhow kicked out a tuft of grass with his 
heel. “Smell that, ” he said. “Isn’t it good?” 
Dick snuffed luxuriously. “Now pick up your 
feet and run.” They approached as near to 
the regiment as was possible. The clank of 
bayonets being unfixed made Dick’s nostrils 
quiver. 

“Let's get nearer. They’re in column, 
aren’t they?” 

“Yes. How did you know?” 

“Felt it. Oh, my men! — my beautiful men!’' 
He edged forward as though he could see. 
“I could draw those chaps once. Who’ll 
draw ’em now!” 

“They’ll move off in a minute. Don’t jump 
when the band begins.” 

“Huh! I’m not a new charger. It’s the 
silences that hurt. Nearer, Torp! — nearer! 
Oh, my God, what wouldn’t I give to see ’em 
for a minute! — one half minute!” 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


175 


He could hear the armed life almost within 
reach of him, could hear the slings tighten 
across the bandsman’s chest as he heaved the 
big drum from the ground. 

“Sticks crossed above his head,” whispered 
Torpenhow. 

“I know! I know! Who should know if I 
don’t! H’sh!” 

The drum-sticks fell with a boom, and the 
men swung forward to the crash of the band. 
Dick felt the wind of the massed movement 
in his face, heard the maddening tramp of 
feet and the friction of the pouches on the 
belts. The big drum pounded out the tune. 
It was a music-hall refrain that made a perfect 
quickstep : 

He must be a man of decent height, 

He must be a man of weight. 

He must come home on a Saturday night 
In a thoroughly sober state ; 

He must know how to love me, 

And he must know how to kiss : 

And if he’s enough to keep us both 
I can’t refuse him bliss. 

“What’s the matter?” said Torpenhow, as 
he saw Dick’s head fall when the last of the 
regiment had departed. 

“Nothing. I feel a little bit out of the running 
-that’s all. Torp, take me back. Why did 
you bring me out?” 


176 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


CHAPTER XI. 

There were three friends that buried the fourth, 

The mold in his mouth and the dust in his eyes; 

And they went south, and east, and north, — 

The strong man fights, but the sick man dies. 

There were three friends that spoke of the dead, — 

The strong man fights, but the sick man dies. — 

“And would he were here with us now,” they said, 
‘‘The sun in our face and the wind in our eyes.” 

—Ballad. 

The Nilghai was angry with Torpenhow. 
Dick had been sent to bed, — blind men are 
ever under the orders of those who can see, — 
and since he had returned from the Park had 
fluently cursed Torpenhow because he was 
alive, and all the world because it was alive 
and could see, while he, Dick, was dead in the 
death of the iDlind, who, at the best, are only 
burdens upon their associates. Torpenhow 
had said something about a Mrs. Gummidge, 
and Dick had retired in a black fury to handle 
and re-handle three unopened letters from 
Maisie. 

The Nilghai, fat, burly, and aggressive, was 
in Torpenhow’s rooms. Behind him sat the 
Keneu, the Great War Eagle, and between 
them lay a large map embellished with black 
and white-headed pins. 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


177 


“I was wrong about the Balkans,” said the 
Nilghai. “But I’m not wrong about this bus- 
iness. The whole of our work in the Southern 
Soudan must be done over again. The public 
doesn’t care, of course, but the government 
does, and they are making their arrangements 
quietly. You know that as well as I do.’’ 

“I remember how the people cursed us when 
our troops withdrew from Omdurman. It 
was bound to crop up sooner or later. But I 
can’t go,’’ said Torpenhow. He pointed 
through the open door; it was a hot night. 
“Can you blame me?’’ 

The Keneu purred above his pipe like a 
large and very happy cat ; 

“Don’t blame you in the least. It’s uncom- 
monly good of you, and all the rest of it, but 
every man — even you, Torp — must consider 
his work. I know it sounds brutal, but Dick’s 
out of the race, — down, — gastados, expended, 
finished, done for. He has a little money of 
his own. He won’t starve, and you can’t 
pull out your slide for his sake. Think of your 
own reputation.’’ 

“Dick’s was five times bigger than mine and 
yours put together.’’ 

“That was because he signed his name to 
everything he did. It’s all ended now. You 
must hold yourself in readiness to move out. 
You can command your own prices, and you do 
better work than any three of us.” 

“Don’t tell me how tempting it is. I’ll stay 
here to look after Dick for a while. He’s as 


12 


178 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


cheerful as a bear with a sore head, but I 
think he likes to have me about him.” 

The Nilghai said something- uncomplimen- 
tary on soft-headed fools who throw away their 
careers for other fools. Torpenhow flushed 
angrily. The constant strain of attendance on 
Dick had worn his nerves thin. 

“There remains a third fate,” said the 
Keneu, thoughtfully. “Consider this, and 
be not larger fools than is necessary. Dick is 
— or rather was — an able-bodied man of mod- 
erate attractions and a certain amount of 
audacity. ” 

“Oho!” said the Nilghai, who remembered 
an affair at Cairo. “I begin to see. Torp, 
I*m sorry. ” 

Torpenhow nodded forgiveness: “You were 
more sorry when he cut you out, though. Go 
on, Keneu.” 

“I’ve often thought, when I’ve seen men die 
out in the desert, that if the news could be 
sent through the world, and the means of 
transport w^ere quick enough, there would be 
one woman at least at each man’s bedside.” 

“There would be some mighty quaint revela- 
tions. Let us be grateful things are as they 
are,” said the Nilghai. 

“Let us rather reverently consider whether 
Torp’s three-cornered ministrations are exactly 
what Dick needs just now. What do you think 
yourself, Torp?” 

“I know they aren’t. But what can I 
do?” 

“Lay the matter before the board. We are 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


179 


all Dick’s friends here. You’ve been most in 
his life. ” 

“But I picked it up when he was off his 
head. ’’ 

“The greater chance of its being true. I 
thought we should arrive. Who is she?’’ 

Then Torpenhow told a tale in plain words, 
as a special correspondent who knows how to 
make a verbal precis should tell it. The men 
listened without interruption. “Is it possi- 
ble that a man can come back across the years 
of his calf-love?’’ said the Keneu. “Is it pos- 
sible?” 

“I give the facts. He says nothing about it 
now, but he sits fumbling three letters from 
her when he thinks I’m not looking. What 
am I to do?” 

“Speak to him,” said the Nilghai. 

“Oh, yes! Write to her, — I don’t know her 
full name, remember, — and ask her to accept 
him out of pity. I believe you once told Dick 
you were sorry for him, Nilghai. You remem- 
ber what happened, eh? Go into the bedroom 
and suggest full confession and an appeal to 
this Maisie girl, whoever she is. I honestly 
believe he’d try to kill you; and the blindness 
has made him rather muscular.” 

“Torpenhow’s course is perfectly clear, 
said the Keneu. “He will go to Vitry-sur- 
Marne, which is on the Bezieres- Landes Rail- 
way — single track from Tourgas. The Prus- 
sians shelled it out in ’70 because there was a 
poplar on the top of a hill eighteen hundred 
yards from the church spire. There’s a 


180 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


squadi'on of cavalry quartered there — or ought 
to be. Where this studio Torp spoke about 
may be I cannot tell. That is Torp’s busi- 
ness. I have given him his route. He will 
dispassionately explain the situation to the 
girl, and she will come back to Dick — the more 
especially because, to use Dick’s words, ‘There 
is nothing but her damned obstinacy to keep 
them apart. ’ ” 

“And they have four hundred and twenty 
pounds a year between ’em. Dick never lost 
his head for figures, even in his delirium. You 
haven’t the shadow of an excuse for not 
going,’’ said the Nilghai. 

Torpenhow looked very uncomfortable. 
“But it’s absurd and impossible. I can’t drag 
her back by the hair. ” 

“Our business — the business for which we 
draw our money — is to do absurd and impos- 
sible things — generally with no reason what- 
ever except to amuse the public. Here we 
have a reason. The rest doesn’t matter. I 
shall share these rooms with the Nilghai till 
Torpenhow returns. There will be a batch 
of unbridled ‘specials’ coming to town in a 
little while, and these will serve as their head- 
quarters. Another reason for sending Torpen- 
how away. Thus Providence helps those who 
help others, and’’ — here the Keneu aban- 
doned his measured speech — “we can’t have 
you tied by the leg to Dick when the trouble 
begins. It’s your only chance of getting 
away; and Dick will be grateful.’’ 

“He will — worse luck! I can but go and try. 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


181 


I can’t conceive a woman in her senses refus- 
ing Dick. ’ ’ 

“Talk that out with the girl. I have seen 
yon wheedle an angry Madieh woman into 
giving you dates. This won’t be a tithe as 
difficult. You had bette^ not be here to- 
morrow afternoon, because the Nilghai and I 
will be in possession. It is an order. Obey.’’ 

“Dick,” said Torpenhow next morning, 
“can I do anything for you?’’ 

“No! leave me alone. How often must I 
remind you I’m blind?’’ 

“Nothing I could go for to fetch, for to carry, 
for to bring?” 

“No. Take those infernal creaking boots of 
yours away. ’ ’ 

“Poor chap!’’ said Torpenhow to himself. 
*T must have been sitting on his nerves lately. 
He w’ants a lighter step.’’ Then, aloud, “Very 
well. Since you’re so independent, I’m going 
off for four or five days. Say good-by at least. 
The housekeeper will look after you, and 
Keneu has my rooms.’’ 

Dick’s face fell. “You won’t be longer than 
a week at the outside? I know I’m touched 
in the temper, but I can’t' get on without 
you. ’’ 

“Can’t you? You’ll have to do without me 
in a little time, and you’ll be glad I’m gone.’’ 

Dick felt his way back to the big chair, and 
wondered what these things might mean. 
He did not wish to be tended by the house- 
keeper, and yet Torpenhow’s constant tender- 
nesses jarred on him. He did not exactly know 


182 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


what he wanted. The darkness would not lift, 
and Maisie’s unopened letters felt worn and 
old from much handling. He could never 
read them for himself as long as life endured; 
but Maisie might have sent him some fresh 
ones to play with. The Nilghai entered with 
a gift — a piece of red modeling-wax. He 
fancied that Dick might find interest in using 
his hands. Dick poked and patted the stuff 
for a few minutes, and, “Is it like anything 
in the world.?” he said drearily. “Take it 
away. I may get the touch of the blind in 
fifty years. Do you know where Torpenhow 
has gone?” 

The Nilghai knew nothing. “We’re stay- 
ing in his rooms till he comes back. Can we 
do anything for you?” 

“I’d like to be left alone, please. Don’t 
think I’m ungrateful; but I’m best alone.” 

The Nilghai chuckled, and Dick resumed his 
drowsy brooding and sullen rebellion against 
fate. He had long since ceased to think about 
the work he had done in the old days, and the 
desire to do more work had departed from 
him. He was exceedingly sorry for himself, 
and the completeness of his tender grief 
soothed him. But his soul and his body cried 
for Maisie — Maisie who would understand. 
His mind pointed out that Maisie, having her 
own work to do, would not care. His experi- 
ence had taught him that when money was ex- 
hausted women went away, and that when a 
man was knocked out of the race, the others 
trampled on him. “Then at the least,” said 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


183 


Dick in reply, “she could use me as I used 
Binat — for some sort of a study. I wouldn’t 
ask more than to be near her again, even 
though I knew another man was making love 
to her. Ugh! what a dog I am!” 

A voice on the staircase began to sing 
joyfully : 

“When we go — go — go away from here. 

Our creditors will weep and they will wail. 

Our absence much regretting when they find that we’ve 
been getting 

Out of England by next Tuesday’s Indian Mail.’’ 

Following the trampling of feet, slamming 
of Torpenhow’s door, and the sound of voices 
in strenuous debate, someone squeaked, “And 
see, you good fellows, I have found a new 
water-bottle, — firs’-class patent, — eh, how you 
say? Open himself inside out. “ 

Dick sprang to his feet. He knew the voice 
well. “That’s Cassavetti, come back from 
the Continent. Now I know why Torp went 
away. There’s a row somewhere, and — I’m 
out of it!’’ 

The Nilghai commanded silence in vain. 
“That's for my sake,’’ Dick said bitterly. “The 
birds are getting ready to fly, and they wouldn’t 
tell me. I can hear Morten-Sutherland and 
Mackaye. Half the War Correspondents in 
London are there — and I am out of it.’’ 

He stumbled across the landing and plunged 
into Torpenhow’s room. He could feel that 
it was full of men. “Where’s the trouble?’’ 
said he. “In the Balkans at last? Why didn’t 
some one tell me?’’ 


184 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“We thought you wouldn’t be interested, ’’ 
said the Nilghai shamefacedly. “It’s in the 
Soudan, as usual.” 

“You lucky dogs! Let me sit here while 
you talk. I shan’t be a skeleton at the feast. 
Cassavetti, where are you? Your English is 
as bad as ever. ’’ 

Dick was led into a chair. He heard the 
rustle of the maps, and the talk swept for- 
ward, carrying him with it. Everybody spoke 
at once, discussing press censorship, railway 
routes, transport, water-supply, the capacities 
of generals, — these in language that would 
have horrified a trusting public, — ranting, 
asserting, denouncing, and laughing at the top 
of their voices. There was the glorious cer- 
tainty of war in the Soudan at any moment. 
The Nilghai said so, and it was well to be in 
readiness. The Keneu had telegraphed to 
Cairo for horses; Cassavetti had stolen a per- 
fectly inaccurate list of troops that would be 
ordered forward, and was reading it out amid 
profane interruptions, and the Keneu intro- 
duced to Dick some man unknown who would 
be employed as war artist by the Central 
Southern Syndicate. “It’s his first outing,’’ 
said the Keneu. “Give him some tips — about 
riding camels. ’’ 

“Qh, those camels!” groaned Cassavetti. 
“I shall learn to ride him again, and now I am 
so much all soft! Listen, you good fellows. I 
kaow your military arrangement very well. 
There will go the Royal Argalshire Suther- 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


185 


landers. So it was read to me upon the best 
authority. ” 

A roar of laughter interrupted him. 

“Sit down,” said the Nilghai. “The lists 
aren’t even made out in the War Office.” 

“Will there be any force at Suakim?” said a 
voice. 

Then the outcries redoubled, and grew 
mixed, thus: “How many Egyptian troops 

will they use? God help the Fellaheen ! 

There’s a railway in Plumstead marshes doing 

duty as a fives-court. We shall have the 

Suakim-Berber line built at last. Canadian 

voyageurs are too careful. Give me a half- 
drunk Krooman in a whale-boat. Who 

commands the desert column? No, they 

never blew up the big rock in the Ghizeh bend. 

We shall have to be hauled up, as usual. 

Somebody tell me if there’s an Indian contin- 
gent, or ril'break everybody's head. Don’t 

tear the map in two. It’s a war of occupa- 

tion, I tell you, to connect with the African 

companies in the South. There’s a Guinea- 

worm in most of the wells on that route.” 
Then the Nilghai, despairing of peace, bel- 
lowed like a fog-horn and beat upon the table 
with both hands. 

“But what becomes of Torpenhow?” said 
Dick, in the silence that followed. 

“Torp’s in abeyance just now. He’s off 
love-making somewhere, I suppose,” said the 
Nilghai. 

“He said he was going to stay at home,” 
said the Keneu. 


186 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“Is he?” said Dick, with an oath. “He 
won’t. I’m not much good now, but if you 
and the Nilghai hold him down I’ll engage to 
trample on liim till he sees reason. He stay 
behind, indeed! He’s the best of you all. 
There’ll be some tough work by Omdurman. 
We shall come there to stay, this time. But I 
forgot. I wish I were going with you.” 

“So do we all, Dickie,” said the Keneu. 

“And I most of all,” said the new artist of 
the Central Southern Syndicate. “Could you 
tell me ” 

“I’ll give you one piece of advice,” Dick 
answered, moving toward the door. “If you 
happen to be cut over the head in a scrim- 
mage, don’t guard. Tell the man to go on 
cutting. You’ll find it cheapest in the end. 
Thanks for letting me look in.” 

“There’s grit in Dick,” said th^ Nilghai, an 
hour later, when the room was emptied of all 
save the Keneu. 

“It was the sacred call of the war-trumpet. 
Did you notice how he answered to it? Poor 
•fellow! Let’s look at him,” said the Keneu. 

The excitement of the talk had died away. 
Dick was sitting by the studio table, with his 
head on his arms, when the men came in. 
He did not change his position. 

“It hurts,” he moaned. “God forgive me, 
but it hurts cruelly; and yet, y’know, the 
world has a knack of spinning round all by it- 
self. Shall I see Torp before he goes?” 

“Oh, yes! You’ll see him,” said the Nil- 
\ ghai. 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


187 


CHAPTER XIL 

The sun went down an hour ago, 

I wonder if I face toward home, — 

If I lost my way in the light of day. 

How shall I find it now night is come? 

— Old Song. 

“Maisie, come to bed.” 

‘‘It’s so hot I can’t sleep. Don’t worry.” 

Maisie put her elbows on the window-sill 
and looked at the moonlight on the straight, 
poplar-flanked road. Summer had come upon 
Vitry-sur-Marne and parched it to the bone. 
The grass was dry-burnt in the meadows, the 
clay by the bank of the river was caked to 
brick, the road- side flowers were long since 
dead, and the roses in the garden hung 
withered on th,eir stalks. The heat in the lit- 
tle low bedroom under the eaves was almost 
intolerable. The very moonlight on the wall 
of Kami’s studio across the road seemed to 
make the night hotter, and the shadow of the 
big bell-handle by the closed gate cast a bar 
of inky black that caught Maisie’s eye and 
annoyed her. 

‘‘Horrid thing! It should be all white,” she 
murmured. ‘‘And the gate isn’t in the mid- 
dle of the wall, either. I never noticed that 
before. ” 

Maisie was hard to please at that hour. 


188 


• THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


First, the heat of the past few weeks had worn 
her down; secondly, her work, and particu- 
larly the study of a female head intended to 
represent the Melancolia and not finished in 
time for the Salon, was unsatisfactory; 
thirdly, Kami had said as much two days be- 
fore; fourthly, — but so completely fourthly 
that it was hardly worth thinking about, — 
Dick, her property, had not written to her for 
more than six weeks. She was angry with 
the heat, with Kami, and with her work, but 
she was exceedingly angry with Dick. 

She had written to him three times, — each 
time proposing a fresh treatment of her Melan- 
colia. Dick had taken no notice of these com- 
munications. She was resolved to write no 
more. When she returned to England in the 
autumn — for her pride’s sake she could not 
return earlier — she would speak to him. She 
missed the Sunday afternoon conferences more 
than she cared to admit. All that Kami said 
was, Continue z, me s demoiselles, co7itinuez 

toujours'" and he had been repeating his weari- 
some counsel through the hot summer, exactly 
like a cicale, — an old gray cicale in a black 
alpaca coat, white trousers, and a huge felt hat. 
But Dick had tramped masterfully up and 
down her little studio north of the cool green 
London park, and had said things ten times 
worse than cojitinuez,"' before he snatched the 
brush out of her hand and showed her where 
her error lay. His last letter, Maisie remem- 
bered, contained some trivial advice about not 
Sketching in the sun or drinking water at way- 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


189 


side farm-houses; and he had said that not 
once, but three times, — as if he did not know 
that Maisie could take care of herself. 

But what was he doing, that he could not 
trouble to write? A murmur of voices in the 
road made her lean from the window. A 
cavalryman of the little garrison in the town 
was talking to Kami’s cook. The moonlight 
glittered on the scabbard of his saber, which 
he was holding in his hand lest it should clank 
inopportunely. The cook’s cap cast deep 
shadows on her face, which was close to the 
conscript’s. He slid his arm around her 
waist, and there followed the sound of a 
kiss. 

“Faugh!” said Maisie, stepping back. 

“What’s that?” said the red-haired girl, 
who was tossing uneasily outside her bed. 

“Only a conscript kissing the cook,” said 
Maisie. “They’ve gone away now.” She 
leaned out of the window again, and put a 
shawl over her night-gown to guard against 
chills. There was a very small night-breeze 
abroad, and a sun-baked rose below nodded its 
head as one who knew unutterable secrets. 
Was it possible that Dick should turn his 
thoughts from her work and his own and de- 
scend to the degradation of Suzanne and the 
conscript? He could not! The rose nodded 
its head and one leaf therewith. It looked like 
a naughty little devil scratching its ear. Dick 
could not, “because,” thought Maisie, “he is 
mine, — mine, — mine. He said he was. I’m 
sure I don’t care what he does. It will only 


190 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


Spoil his work if he does; and it will spoil mine 
too. ’ ’ 

The rose continued to nod in the futile way 
peculiar to flowers. There was no earthly 
reason why Dick should not disport himself as 
he chose, except that he was called by Provi- 
dence, which was Maisie, to assist Maisie in 
her work. And her work was the preparation 
of pictures that went sometimes to English 
provincial exhibitions, as the notices in the 
scrap-book proved, and that were invariably 
rejected by the Salon when Kami was plagued 
into allowing her to send them up. Her work 
in the future, it seemed, would be the prepar- 
ation of pictures on exactly similar lines which 
would be rejected in exactly the same way 

The red-haired girl threshed distressfully 
across the sheets. “It’s too hot to sleep,” she 
moaned; and the interruption jarred. 

Exactly the same way. Then she would 
divide her 5^ears between the little studio in 
England and Kami’s big studio at Vitry-sur- 
Marne. No, she would go to another master, 
who should force her into the success that was 
her right, if patient toil and desperate endeavor 
gave one a right to anything. Dick had told 
her that he had worked ten years to understand 
his craft. She had worked ten years, and ten 
years were nothing. Dick had said that ten 
years were nothing, — but that was in regard 
to herself only. He had said — this very man 
who could not find time to write— that he 
would wait ten years for her, and that she was 
bound to come back to him sooner or later. 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


191 


He had said this in the absurd letter about sun- 
stroke .and diphtheria; and then he had 
stopped writing. He was wandering up and 
down moonlit streets, kissing cooks. She 
would like to lecture him now, — not in her 
night-gown, of course, but properly dressed, 
severely and from a height. Yet, if he was 
kissing other girls, he certainly would not care 
whether she lectured him or not. He would 
laugh at her. Very good. She would go back 
to her studio and prepare pictures that went, 
etc., etc. The mill- wheel of thought swung 
round slowly, that no section of it might be 
slurred over, and the red-haired girl tossed and 
turned behind her. 

Maisie put her chin in her hands and decided 
that there could be no doubt whatever of the 
villainy of Dick. To justify herself, she began, 
unwomanly, to weigh the evidence. There 
was a boy, and he had said he loved her. And 
he kissed her, — kissed her on the cheek, — by a 
yellow sea-poppy that nodded its head exactly 
like the maddening dry rose in the garden. 
Then there was an interval, and men had told 
her that they loved her — just when she was 
busiest with her work. Then the boy came 
back, and at their very second meeting had 

told her that he loved her. Then he had 

But there was no end to the things he had 
done. He had given her his time and his 
powers. He had spoken to her of Art, house- 
keeping, technique, teacups, the abuse of 
pickles as a stimulant, — that was rude, — sable 
hair- brushes, — he had given her the best in her 


192 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


Stock, — she used them daily; he had given her 
advice that she profited by, and now and again 
— a look. Such a look ! The look of a beaten 
hound waiting for the word to crawl to his 
mistress’ feet. In return she had given him 
nothing whatever, except — here she brushed 
her mouth against the open-work sleeve of her 
night-gown — the privilege of kissing her once. 
And on the mouth, too. Disgraceful! Was 
that not enough, and more than enough? and 
if it was not, had he not canceled the debt by 
not writing and — probably kissing other girls? 

“Maisie, you’ll catch a chill. Do go and lie 
down,” said the wearied voice of her compan- 
ion. ‘‘I can’t sleep a wink with you at the 
window. ” 

Maisie shrugged her shoulders and did not 
answer. She was reflecting on the meannesses 
of Dick, and on other meannesses with which 
he had nothing to do. The remorseless moon- 
light would not let her sleep. It lay on the 
skylight of the studio across the road in cold 
silver, and she stared at it intently and her 
thoughts began to slide one into the other. 
The shadow of the big bell-handle in the wall 
grew short, lengthened again, and faded out as 
the moon went down behind the pasture and a 
hare came limping home across the road. Then 
the dawn-wind washed through the upland 
grasses, and brought coolness with it, and the 
cattle lowed by the drought-shrunk river. 
Maisie ’s bead fell forward on the window-sill, 
and the tangle of black hair covered her arms. 
“Maisie, wake up. You’ll catch a chill.” 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


193 


“Yes, dear; yes, dear.” She staggered to 
her bed like a wearied child, and as she buried 
her face in the pillows she muttered, “I think 
—I think. . . . But he ought to have writ- 
ten.” 

Day brought the routine of the studio, the 
smell of paint and turpentine, and the monot- 
onous wisdom of Kami, who was a leaden 
artist, but a golden teacher if the pupil were 
only in sympathy with him. Maisie was not 
in sympathy that day, and she waited impa- 
tiently for the end of the work. She knew 
when it was coming ; for Kami would gather 
his black alpaca coat into a bunch behind him, 
and, with faded blue eyes that saw neither 
pupils nor canvas, look back into the past to 
recall the history of one Binat. “You have all 
done not so badly,” he would say. “But you 
shall remember that it is not enough to have 
the method, and the art, and the power, nor 
even that which is touch, but you shall have 
also the conviction that nails the work to the 
wall. Of the so many I have taught,” — here 
the students would begin to unfix drawing-pins 
or get their tubes together, — “the very so 
many that I have taught, the best was Binat. 
All that comes of the study and the work and 
the knowledge was to him even when he came. 
After he left me he should have done all that 
could be done with the color, the form, and the 
knowledge. Only, he had not the conviction. 
So to-day I hear no more of Binat, — the best 
of my pupils, — and that is long ago. So 
to-day, too, you will be glad to hear no more 

13 Light that Failed 


194 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


of me. Continuez, mesdemoiselles, and, above 
all, with conviction.” 

He went into the garden, to smoke and 
mourn over the lost Binat, as the pupils dis- 
persed to their several cottages or loitered in 
the studio to make plans for the cool of the 
afternoon. 

Maisie looked at her very unhappy Melan- 
colia, restrained a desire to grimace before it, 
and was hurrying across the road to write a 
letter to Dick, when she was aware of a large 
man on a white troop-horse. How Torpenhow 
had managed in the course of twenty hours to 
find his way to the hearts of the cavalry officers 
in quarters at Vitry-sur-Marne, to discuss with 
them the certainty of a glorious reva7iche for 
France, to reduce the colonel to tears of pure 
affability, and to borrow the best horse in the 
squadron for the journey to Kami’s studio, is a 
mystery that only special correspondents can 
unravel. 

‘ ‘ I beg your pardon, ’ ’ said he. ‘ ‘ It seems an 
absurd question to ask, but the fact is that I 
don’t know her by any other name: Is there 
any young lady here that is called Maisie?” 

‘‘I am Maisie,” was the answer from the 
depths of a great sun-hat. 

“I ought to introduce myself,” he said, as 
the horse capered in' the blinding white dust. 
‘‘My name is Torpenhow. Dick Heldar is 
my best friend, and — and — the fact is that he 
has gone blind. ” 

‘‘Blind!” said Maisie, stupidly. ‘‘He can’t 
be blind’” 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


195 


“He has been stone-blind for nearly two 
months. ’’ 

Maisie lifted np her face, and it was pearly 
white. “No! No! Not blind! Iwon’thave 
him blind !’’ 

“Would you care to see for yourself?” said 
Torpenhow. 

“Now, — at once?” 

“Oh, no! The Paris train doesn’t ^o through 
this place till eight to-night. There will be 
ample time. ” 

“Did Mr. Heldar send you to me?” 

“Certainly not. Dick wouldn’t have that 
sort of thing. He’s sitting in his studio, turn- 
ing over some letters that he can’t read because 
he’s blind. ” 

There was a sound of choking from the sun- 
hat. Maisie bowed her head and went into the 
cottage, where the red-haired girl was on a 
sofa, complaining of a headache. 

“Dick’s blind!” said Maisie, taking her 
breath quickly as she steadied herself against 
a chair-back. “My Dick’s blind!” 

“What?” The girl was on the sofa no 
longer. 

“A man has come from England to tell me. 
He hasn’t written to me for six weeks.” 

“Are you going to him?” 

“I must think. ” 

“Think! I should go back to London and 
see him, and I should kiss his eyes and kiss 
them and kiss them until they got well again! 
If you don’t go I shall. Oh, what am I talk- 


196 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


ing about? You wicked little idiot ! Go to him 
at once. Go!” 

Torpenhow’s neck was blistering, but he 
preserved a smile of infinite patience as Maisie 
appeared bare-headed in the sunshine. 

‘‘I am coming,” said she, her eyes on the 
ground. 

“You will be at Vitry Station, then, at seven 
this evening. ” This was an order delivered by 
one who was used to being obeyed. Maisie 
said nothing, but she felt grateful that there 
was no chance of disputing with this big man 
who took everything for granted and managed 
a squealing horse with one hand. She returned 
to the red-haired girl, who was weeping bit- 
terly, and between tears, kisses, — very few of 
those, — menthol, packing, and an interview 
with Kami, the sultry afternoon wore away. 
Thought might come afterward. Her present 
duty was to go to Dick, — Dick who owned the 
wondrous friend and sat in the dark, playing 
with her unopened letters. 

“But what will you do?” she said to her 
companion. 

‘‘I? Oh, I shall stay here and — finish your 
Melancolia, ” she said, smiling pitifully. 
“Write to me afterward.” 

That night there ran a legend through Vitry- 
sur-Marne of a mad Englishman, doubtless 
suffering from sun-stroke, who had drunk all 
the officers of the garrison under the table, 
had borrowed a horse from the lines, and had 
then and there eloped, after the English cus- 
tom, with one of those more than mad English 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


197 


girls who drew pictures down there under the 
care of that good Monsieur Kami. 

“They are very droll,” said Suzanne to the 
conscript, in the moonlight by the studio wall. 
“She walked always with those big eyes that 
saw nothing, and yet she kisses me on both 
cheeks as though she were my sister, and gives 
me — see — ten francs!” 

The conscript levied a contribution on both 
gifts; for he prided himself on being a good 
soldier. 

Torpenhow spoke very little to Maisie dur- 
ing the journey to Calais; but he was careful 
to attend to all her wants, to get her a com- 
partment entirely to herself, and to leave her 
alone, tie was amazed at the ease with which 
the matter had been accomplished. 

“The safest thing would be to let her think 
things cut. By Dick’s showing, — when he was 
off his head, — she must have ordered him 
about very thoroughly. Wonder how she 
likes being under orders.” 

Maisie never told. She sat in the empty 
compartment often with her eyes shut, that 
she might realize the sensation of blindness. 
It was an order that she should return to Lon- 
don swiftly, and she found herself at last 
almost beginning to enjoy the situation. This 
was better than looking after trunks and a red- 
haired friend who never seemed to take any 
interest in her surroundings. But there 
appeared to be a feeling in the air that she, 
Maisie, — of all people, — was in disgrace. 
Therefore, she justified her conduct to herself 


198 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


with great success, till Torpenhow came up to 
her on the steamer and without preface began 
to tell the story of Dick’s blindness, suppress- 
ing a few details, but dwelling at length on the 
miseries of delirium. He stopped before he 
reached the end, as though he had lost interest 
in the subject, and went forward to smoke. 
Maisie was furious with him and with herself. 

She was hurried on from Dover to London 
almost before she could ask for breakfast, and 
— she was past any feeling of indignation now 
— was bidden curtly to wait in a hall at the foot 
of some lead-covered stairs while Torpenhow 
went up to make inquiries. Again the 
knowledge that she was being treated like a 
naughty little girl made her pale cheeks flame. 
It was all Dick’s fault for being so stupid as to 
go blind. 

Torpenhow led her up to a shut door, which 
he opened very softly. Dick was sitting by 
the window, with his chin on his chest. There 
were three envelopes in his hand, and he turned 
them over and over. The big man who gave 
orders was no longer by her side, and the studio 
door snapped behind her. 

Dick thrust the letters into his pocket as he 
heard the sound. “Hullo, Torp! Is that you? 
I’ve been so lonely.’’ 

His voice had taken the peculiar flatness of 
the blind. Maisie pressed herself up into a 
corner of the room. Her heart was beating 
furiously, and she put one hand on her breast 
to keep it quiet. Dick was staring directly at 
her, and she realized for the first time that he 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


199 


was blind. Shutting her eyes in a railway- 
carriage to open them when she pleased was 
child’s play. This man was blind though his 
eyes were wide open. 

“Torp, is that you? They said you were 
coming.” Dick looked puzzled and a little 
irritated at the silence. 

“No: it’s only me,” was the answer, in a 
strained little whisper. Maisie could hardly 
move her lips. 

“H’m!” said Dick, composedly, without 
moving. “This is a new phenomenon. Dark- 
ness I’m getting used to; but I object to hear- 
ing voices. ’ ’ 

Was he mad, then, as well as blind, that he 
talked to himself? Maisie’s heart beat more 
wildly, and she breathed in gasps. Dick rose 
and began to feel his way across the room, 
touching each table and chair as he passed. 
Once he caught his foot in a rug, and swore, 
dropping on his knees to feel what the obstruc- 
tion might be. Maisie remembered him walk- 
ing in the Park as though all the earth belonged 
to him, tramping up and down her studio two 
months ago, and flying up the gangway of the 
Channel steamer. The beating of her heart 
was making her sick, and Dick was coming 
nearer, guided by the sound of her breathing. 
She put out a hand mechanically to ward him 
off or to draw him to herself, she did not know 
which. It touched his chest, and he stepped 
back as though he had been shot. 

“It’s Maisie!” said he, with a dry sob. 
“What are you doing here?” 


200 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“I came — I came — to see you, please.” 

Dick’s lips closed firmly. 

“Won’t you sit down, then? You see, I’ve 
had some bother with my eyes, and — ’’ 

“I know. I know. Why didn’t you tell 
me?’’ 

“I couldn’t write. ’’ 

“You might have told Mr. Torpenhow. ’’ 

“What has he to do with my affairs?’’ 

“He — he brought me from Vitry-sur- Marne. 
He thought I ought to see you.’’ 

“Why, what has happened? Can I do any- 
thing for you? No, I can’t. I forgot.” 

“Oh, Dick, I’m so sorry. I’ve come to tell 

you, and Let me take you back to your 

chair. ’ ’ 

“Don’t! I’m not a child. You only do that 
out of pity. I never meant to tell you any- 
thing about it. I’m no good now. I’m down 
and done for. Let me alone!” 

He groped back to his chair, his chest labor- 
ing as he sat down. Maisie was afraid no 
more. 

Maisie watched him, and the fear went out 
of her heart, to be followed by a very bitter 
shame. He had spoken a truth that had been 
hidden from the girl through every step of the 
impetuous flight to London ; for he was indeed 
down and done for — masterful no longer, but 
rather a little abject; neither an artist stronger 
than she, nor a man to be looked up to — only 
some one blind who sat in a chair, and seemed 
on the point of crying. She was immensely 
and unfeignedly sorry for him — more sorry 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


201 


than she had ever been for any one in her life, 
but not sorry enough to deny his words. So 
she stood still and felt ashamed and a little 
hurt, because she had intended that her 
.journey should end triumphantly, and now she 
was only filled with pity startlingly distinct 
from love. 

“Well,” said Dick, his face steadily turned 
away. “I never meant to worry you any 
more. What’s the matter?” 

He was conscious that Maisie was catching 
her breath, but he was as unprepared as her- 
self or the torrent of emotion that followed. 
People who cannot cry easily weep a good deal 
when the fountains of the great deep are 
broken up. She had dropped into a chair and 
was sobbing with her face hidden in her hands. 

“I can’t — I can’t,” she cried desperately. 
“Indeed I can’t. It isn’t my fault. I’m so 
sorry. Oh, I’m so sorry.” 

Dick’s shoulders straightened again, for the 
words lashed like a whip. Still the sobbing 
continued. It is not good to realize that you 
have failed in the hour of trial, or flinched be- 
fore the mere possibility of making sacrifices. 

“I do despise myself. I do. But I can’t. 
Oh, Dickie, you wouldn’t ask me — would 
you?” 

She looked up for a minute, and by chance 
it happened that Dick’s eyes fell on hers. The 
unshaven face was very white and set, and the 
lips were trying to force themselves into a 
smile. But it was the worn out eyes that 
Maisie feared. Her Dick had gone blind and 

14 Light that Failed 


202 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


left in his place some one that she could hardly 
recognize till he spoke. 

“Who is asking you to do anything, Maisie? 
I told you how it would be. What’s the use of 
worrying? For pity’s sake, don’t cry like that; 
it isn’t worth it. ’’ 

“You don’t know how I hate myself — Oh, 
Dick, help me, help me!’’ The passion of 
tears had grown beyond her control, and was 
beginning to alarm the man. He stumbled 
toward her, and put his arm around her, and 
her head fell on his shoulder. 

“Hush, dear; hush! Don’t cry. You’re 
quite right, and you’ve nothing to reproach 
yourself with — you never had. You’re only a 
little upset by the journey, and I don’t sup- 
pose you had any breakfast. What a brute 
Torp was to bring you over.” 

“I wanted to come, I did, indeed,” she 
whimpered. 

“Very well. And now you’ve come and 
seen, and I’m — immensely grateful. When 
you’re better you shall go away, and get some- 
thing to eat. What sort of a passage did you 
have coming over?” 

Maisie was crying more subduedly, for the 
first time in her life glad that she had some- 
thing to lean against. Dick patted her on the 
shoulder tenderly, but clumsily, for he was not 
quite sure where her shoulder might be. 

She drew herself out of his arms at last, and 
waited, trembling, and most unhappy. He 
had felt his way to the window to put the 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


203 


width of the room between them, and to quiet 
a little the tumult in his heart. 

“Are you better now?” he said. 

“Yes, but don’t you hate me?” 

“I hate you? My God! I ” 

“Isn’t — isn’t there anything I could do for 
you, then? I’ll stay here in England to do it, 
if you like. Perhaps I could come and see 
you — sometimes. ’ ’ 

“I think not, dear. It would be kindest not 
to see me any more, please. I don’t want to 
seem rude, but — don’t you think — perhaps you 
had almost better go now.” 

He was conscious that he could not bear 
himself as a man if the strain continued much 
longer. 

“I don’t deserve anything else; I’ll go, Dick. 
Oh, I’m so miserable!” 

“Nonsense, you’ve nothing to worry about. 
I’d tell you if you had. Wait a moment, dear. 
I’ve got something to give you first. I meant 
it for you ever since this little trouble began. 
It’s myMelancolia. She was a beauty when I 
last saw her. You can keep her for me, and 
if ever you’re poor you can sell her. She’s 
worth a few hundreds at any state of the mar- 
ket” He groped among his canvases. “She’s 
framed in black. Is this a black frame that I 
have my hand on? There she is. What do 
you think of her?” 

He turned a scarred, formless muddle of 
paint toward Maisie, and the eyes strained as 
though they would catch her wonder and sur- 


204 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


prise. One thing, and one thing only, could 
she do for him. 

“Well ?“ 

The voice was fuller and more rounded, be- 
cause the man knew that he was speaking of 
his best work. Maisie looked at the blurr, and 
a desire to laugh caught her by the throat. 
But for Dick’s sake — whatever this mad blank- 
ness might mean — she must make no sign. 
Her voice choked with hard-held tears as she 
answered, still gazing on the wreck. “Oh, 
Dick, it is good!” 

He heard the little hysterical gulp, and took 
it for tribute. “Won’t you have it, then? I’ll 
send it over to your house if you will. ’’ 

“I? Oh, yes — thank you.’’ If she did not 
fly at once the laughter that was worse than 
tears would kill her. She turned and ran, 
choking, down the staircases that were empty 
of life, to take refuge in a cab, and go to her 
house across the Parks. There she sat down 
in the almost dismantled drawing-room, and 
thought of Dick in his blindness, useless till 
the end of life, and of herself in her own eyes. 
Behind the sorrow, the shame, and the humilia- 
tion, lay the fear of the cold wrath of the red- 
haired girl when Maisie should return. And 
Maisie had never feared her companion before. 
Not until she found herself saying, “Well, he 
never asked me,*’ did she realize her scorn of 
herself; and that is the end of Maisie. 

For Dick was reserved a torment more 
searching. He could not realize at first that 
Maisie, whom he had ordered to go, had left 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


205 


him without a word of farewell. He was sav- 
agely angry against Torpenhow, Who had 
brought upon him this humiliation, and 
troubled his miserable peace. Then his dark 
hour came, and he was alone with himself and 
his desires, to get what help he could from the 
darkness. The queen could do no wrong, but 
in following the right so far as it served her 
work, she had wounded her one subject more 
than his own brain would let him know. 

“It’s all I had, and I’ve lost it,’’ he said, as 
soon as the misery permitted clear thinking — 
“and Torp will think that he has been so in- 
fernally clever that I shan’t have the heart to 
tell him. I must think this out quietly.” 

“Hullo!” said Torpenhow, entering the 
studio after Dick had enjoyed two hours of 
thought. “Dm back. Are you feeling any 
better?” 

“Torp, I don’t know what to say! Come 
here.” Dick coughed huskily, wondering 
indeed what to say and how to say it temper- 
ately. 

“What’s the need for saying anything? Get 
up and tramp.” 

They walked up and down as of old, Torpen- 
how’s hand on Dick’s shoulder, and Dick bur- 
ied in his own thoughts. 

“How in the world did you find it all out?” 
said Dick, at last. 

“You shouldn’t gooff your head if you want 
to keep secrets, Dickie. It was absolutely 
impertinent on my part; but if you’d seen me 
rocketing about on a half-trained French troop- 


206 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


horse under a blazing sun you’d have laughed. 
There will be a charivari in my room to-night. 
Seven other devils ” 

“I know — the row in the Southern Soudan. 
I surprised their councils the other day, and it 
made me unhappy. Have you fixed your flint 
to go? Who d’you work for?” 

“Haven’t signed any contracts yet. I 
wanted to see how your business would turn 
out.” 

“Would you have stayed with me, then, if — 
things had gone wrong?’ ’ He put his question 
cautiously. 

“Don’t ask me too much. I’m only a man.” 

“You tried to be an angel very success- 
fully.’’ 

“Oh, ye — es! . . .Well, do you attend the 
function to-night? We shall be half screwed 
before the morning. All the men believe the 
war’s a certainty. ’ ’ 

“I don’t think I will, old man, if it’s all the 
same to you. I’ll stay quiet here.’’ 

“And meditate? I don’t blame you. You 
deserve a good time, if ever a man did.’’ 

That night there was tumult on the stairs. 
The correspondents poured in from theater, 
dinner, and music-hall to Torpenhow’s room, 
that they might discuss their plan of campaign 
in the event of military operations being a cer- 
tainty. Torpenhow, the Keneu, and the Nil- 
ghai had bidden all the men they had worked 
with to the orgy; and Mr. Beeton, the house- 
keeper, declared that never before in his 
checkered experience had he seen quite such a 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


207 


fancy lot of gentlemen. They waked the 
chambers with shoutings and song; and the 
elder men were quite as bad as the younger. 
For the chances of war were in front of them, 
and all knew what those meant. 

Sitting in his own room that night, a little 
perplexed by the noise across the landing, Dick 
began to laugh to himself. 

“When one comes to think of it, the situation 
is intensely comic. Maisie’s quite right. Poor 
little thing, I didn’t know she could cry like 
that before — now I know what Torp thinks — 
I’m sure he’d be quite fool enough to stay at 
home and try to console me, if he knew. Be- 
sides, it isn’t nice to own that you’ve been 
thrown over like a broken chair. I must carry 
this business through alone — as usual. If 
there isn’t a war and Torp finds out — I shall 
look foolish, that’s all. If there is a war, I 
mustn’t interfere with another man’s chances. 
Business is business, and I want to be alone — I 
want to be alone. What a row they are mak- 
ing!’’ 

Somebody hammered at the studio door. 

“Come out and frolic, Dickie,’’ said the 
Nilghai. 

“I should like to, but I can’t. I’m not feel- 
ing frolicsome.’’ 

“Then I’ll tell the boys and they’ll draw 
you, like a badger.’’ 

“Please not, old man. On my word. I’d 
sooner be left alone just now.’’ 

“Very good. Can we send anything in to 
you? Fizz, for instance? Cassavetti is begin- 


208 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


ning to sing songs of the sunny South 
already. ’ ’ 

For one moment Dick considered the propo- 
sition, seriously. 

“No, thanks. I ’ ve got a headache already. ’ ’ 

“Virtuous child. That’s the effect of emo- 
tion on the young. All my congratulations, 
Dick. I also was concerned in the conspiracy 
for your welfare. ’ ’ 

“Go to the deuce and — oh, send Binkie in 
here. ’’ 

The little dog entered on elastic feet, riotous 
from having been made much of all the eve- 
ning. He had helped to sing the choruses; 
but scarcely inside the studio, he realized that 
this was no place for tail-wagging, and quietly 
settled himself on Dick’s lap till it was bed- 
time. Then he went to bed with Dick, who 
counted every hour as it struck, and rose in the 
morning, with a brilliantly clear head and very 
bright eyes, to receive Torpenhow’s more for- 
mal congratulations and a particular account 
of the last night’s revels. 

“You aren’t looking very happy for a newly 
accepted man. ’’ 

“Never mind that — it’s my own affair. Do 
you really go?’’ 

“Yes. With the old Central Southern, as 
usual. They wired, and I accepted on better 
terms than before,’’ 

“When do you start?’’ 

“The day after to-morrow, to Brindisi.’’ 

“Thank God!’’ 

“Well, that’s not a prett}^ way of saying you 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


209 


are glad to get rid of me. But men in your 
condition are allowed to be selfish.” 

“I didn’t mean that. Will you get a hun- 
dred pounds cashed for me before you 
leave?” 

“That’s a slender amount of housekeeping, 
isn’t it?” 

“Oh, it’s only for marriage expenses. ” 

Torpenhow brought him the money, counted 
it out in fives and tens, and carefully put it 
away in the writing-table. 

“Now I suppose I shall have to listen to his 
ravings about his girl before I go. Heaven 
send us patience with a man in love,” said he. 

But never a word did Dick say of Maisie or 
marriage. He hung in the doorway of Tor- 
penhow’s room when the latter was packing, 
and asked innumerable questions about the 
coming campaign, till Torpenhow began to 
feel annoyed. 

“You’re a secretive animal, Dickie, and 
you consume your own smoke, don’t you?” he 
said, on the last evening. 

“I — I suppose so. By the way, how long do 
you suppose this war will last?” 

“Days, weeks, or months. One can never 
tell. It may go on for years.” 

“I wish I were going. ” 

“Good Heavens, you’re the most unaccount- 
able creature! Hasn’t it occurred to you that 
you’re going to be married? Thanks to me.” 

“Of course, yes. I’m going to be married 
— so I am. Going to be married. I’m awfully 
grateful to you. Haven’t I told you that?” 

14 


210 THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 

“You might be going to be hanged by the 
look of you,” said Torpenhow. 

And the next day Torpenhow bade him good 
by, and left him to the loneliness he had so 
much desired. 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


211 


CHAPTER XIII. 

Yet at the last ere our spearmen had found him, 

Yet at the last ere a sword- thrust could save, 

Yet at the last, with his masters around him. 

He of the Faith spoke as master to slave. 

Yet at the last though the Kafirs had maimed him. 
Broken by bondage and wrecked by the reever. 

Yet at the last, though the darkness had claimed him. 
He called upon Allah and died a Believer. 

— Kizilbashi. 

“Beg your pardon, Mr. Heldar, but — but 
isn’t nothin’ going to happen?’’ said Mr. 
Beeton. 

“No!” Dick had just waked to another 
morning of blank despair, and his temper was 
of the shortest. 

“ ’Taint my regular business, o’ course, sir; 
and what I says is ‘mind your own business 
and let other people mind theirs;’ but just 
before Mr. Torpenhow went away he give me 
to understand like, that you might be moving 
into a house of your own, so to speak ; a sort 
of house with rooms upstairs and downstairs 
where you’d be better attended to, though I 
try to act just by all our tenants. Don’t I?’’ 

“Ah! That must have been a mad-house. 
I shan’t trouble you to take me there yet. Get 
me my breakfast, please, and leave me alone.’’ 

“I hope I haven’t done anything wrong, sir. 


212 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


but, you know, I hope, that as far as a man 
can I tries to do the proper thing by all the 
gentlemen in chambers, and more particular 
those whose lot is hard, such as you, for 
instance, Mr. Heldar. You like a soft-roe 
bloater, don’t you? Soft-roe bloaters is scarcer 
than hard-roe, but what I says is, ‘never mind 
a little extra trouble so long as you gives satis- 
faction to the tenants,’ ” 

Mr. Beeton withdrew and left Dick to him- 
self. Torpenhow had been more than a month 
away, there was no more rioting in the cham- 
bers opposite, and Dick had settled down to 
his new life, which he was weak enough to 
consider nothing better than death. 

It is not good to live alone in the dark, con- 
fusing the day and night; dropping to sleep 
through sheer weariness at mid-day and rising 
restless in the chill of the dawn. At first, 
Dick, on his awakening, would grope along the 
corridors of the chambers till he heard some 
one snore. Then he would know that the day 
had not yet come and returned wearily to his 
bedroom. Later he learned not to stir till 
there was a noise and movement in the house, 
and Mr. Beeton advised him to get up. Once 
dressed — and dressing, now that Torpenhow 
was away, was a lengthy business, because 
collars, ties, and the like hid themselves in far 
corners of the room and search meant head- 
beating, against chairs and trunks — once 
dressed there was nothing whatever to do 
except to sit still and brood till the three daily 
meals came. Centuries separated breakfast 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


213 


from lunch and lunch from dinner, and though 
a man prayed for hundreds of years that his 
mind might be taken from him, God would 
never hear. Rather, the mind was quickened, 
and the revolving thoughts ground against 
each other as mill-stones grind when there is 
no corn between ; and yet the brain would not 
wear out and give rest. It continued to think 
at length, with imagery and all manner of 
reminiscences. It recalled Maisie and past suc- 
cess, reckless travels by land and sea, the 
glory of doing work and feeling that it was 
good, and suggested all that might have hap- 
pened had the eyes only been faithful to their 
duty. When thinking ceased through sheer 
weariness, there poured into Dick’s soul tide 
on tide of overwhelming, purposeless fear — 
dread of starvation always, terror lest the 
unseen ceiling should crush down upon him, 
fear of fire in the chambers and an ignoble 
death in red flame, and agonies of fiercer 
horror that had nothing to do with any fear of 
death. Then Dick bowed his head, and clutch- 
ing the arms of his chair, fought in with his 
sweating self till the tinkle of plates told him 
that something to eat was being set before 
him. Mr. Beeton would bring the meal when 
he had time to spare, and Dick learned to hang 
upon his speech, which dealt chiefly with 
badly-fitted gas-plugs, waste-pipes out of repair, 
little tricks for driving picture nails into walls, 
and the sins of the charwoman or the house- 
maids. In the lack of better things the small 
gossip of a servants’ hall became immensely 


214 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


interesting, and the screwing of a washer on a 
tap an event to be talked over for days. 

Once or twice a week, too, Mr. Beeton would 
take Dick out with him when he went market- 
ing in the morning, to haggle with tradesmen 
over fish, lamp-wicks, mustard, tapioca, and 
so forth, while Dick rested his weight first on 
one foot and then on the other, and played 
aimlessly with the tins and string-ball on the 
counter. Then they would perhaps meet one 
of Mr. Beeton’s friends, and Dick, standing 
aside a little, would hold his peace till Mr. 
Beeton was willing to go on again. 

The life did not increase his self-respect. 
He abandoned shaving as a dangerous exer- 
cise, and being- shaved in a barber’s shop 
meant exposure of his infirmity. He could not 
see that his clothes were properly brushed, and 
since he had never taken any care of his per- 
sonal appearance, he became every known 
variety of sloven. A blind man cannot eat 
with cleanliness till he has been some months 
used to the darkness. If he demand attend- 
ance and grows angry at the want of it, he 
must assert himself and stand upright. Then 
the meanest menial can see that he is blind, 
and therefore of no consequence. A wise man 
will keep his eyes on the floor and sit still. 
For amusement he may pick coal lump by 
lump out of the scuttle with the tongs and 
pile it in a little heap in the fender, keeping 
count of the lumps, which must all be put back 
again, one by one, and very carefully. He 
may set himself sums if he cares to work them 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


215 


out; he may talk to himself or the cat, if she 
chooses to visit him, and if his trade has been 
that of an artist he may sketch in the air with 
his forefinger; but that is too much like draw- 
ing a pig with the eyes shut. He may go to 
his book-shelves and count his books, ranging 
them in order of their size ; or to his wardrobe 
and count his shirts, laying them in piles of 
two or three on the bed, as they suffer from 
frayed cuffs or lost buttons. Even this enter- 
tainment wearies after a time, and all the times 
are very, very long. 

Dick was allowed to sort a tool-chest where 
Mr. Beeton kept hammers, taps and nuts, 
lengths of gas-pipes, oil-bottles, and string. 

“If I don’t have everything just where I 
know where to look for it, why, then I can’t 
find anything when I do v/ant it. You’ve no 
idea, sir, the amount of little things that these 
chambers uses up,’’ said Mr. Beeton, fumbling 
at the handle of the door as he went out; “it’s 
hard on you, sir. I do think it’s hard on you. 
Ain’t you going to do anything, sir?’’ 

“I’ll pay my rent and messing. Isn’t that 
enough?’’ 

“I wasn’t doubting for a moment that you 
couldn’t pay your way, sir, but I ’ave often 
said to my wife, ‘It’s ’ard on ’im because it 
isn’t as if he was an old man, nor yet a middle- 
aged one, but quite a young gentleman. That’s 
where it comes so ’ard. ’ ’’ 

“I suppose so,’’ said Dick, absently. This 
particular nerve through long battering had 
ceased to feel much. 


216 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“I was thinking,” continued Mr. Beeton, 
still making as if to go, ‘‘that you might like 
to hear my boy Alf read you the papers some- 
times of an evening. He do read beautiful, 
seeing he’s only nine.” 

‘‘I should be very grateful,” said Dick. 
‘‘Only let me make it worth his while.” 

‘‘We wasn’t thinking of that, sir, but of 
course it’s in your own 'ands; but only to 'ear 
Alf sing ‘A boy’s best friend is ’is mother!’ 
Ah!” 

“I'll hear him sing that, too. Let him come 
in this evening with the newspapers.” 

Alf was not a nice child, being puffed up 
with many school-board certificates for good 
conduct, and inordinately proud of his singing. 
Mr. Beeton remained, beaming, while he 
wailed his way through a song of some eight 
eight-line verses in the usual whine of the 
young Cockney, and after compliments left him 
to read Dick the foreign telegrams. Ten min- 
utes later Alf returned to his parents, .rather 
pale and scared. 

‘‘ ’E said ’e couldn’t stand it no more,” he 
explained. 

‘‘He never said you read badly, Alf?” Mrs. 
Beeton spoke. 

‘‘No; ’e said I read beautiful. Said ’e never 
’eard any one read like that, but ’e said ’e 
couldn’t abide the stuff in the papers.” 

‘‘P’r’aps he’s lost some money in the stocks. 
Were you readin’ him about stocks, Alf?” 

‘‘No; it was all about fightin’ out there 
where the soldiers is gone — a great long piece 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


217 


with all the lines close together and very hard 
words in it. ’E give me ’arf a crown because 
I read so well. And ’e says the next time 
there’s anything 'e want read ’e’ll send for 
me. ” 

“That’s good hearing, but I do think for 
all the half-crown — put it into the kicking- 
donkey money-box, Alf, and let me see you 
do it — he might have kept you longer. Why, 
he couldn’t have begun to understand how 
beautiful you read.’’ 

“He’s best left tohisself — gentlemen always 
are when they’re down-hearted,’’ said Mr. 
Beeton. 

Alf’s rigorously limited powers of compre- 
hending Torpenhow’s special correspondence 
had waked the devil of unrest in Dick. He 
could hear through the boy’s nasal chant the 
camels grunting in the squares behind the men 
outside Suakim,; could hear the men swearing 
and chaffing across the cooking-pots, and could 
smell the acrid wood-smoke as it drifted over 
the camp before the night wind of the desert. 

That night he prayed to God that his mind 
might be taken from him, offering for proof 
that he was worthy of this favor, the fact that 
he had not shot himself long ago. That 
prayer was not answered, and indeed Dick 
knew in his heart of hearts that only a linger- 
ing sense of humor and no special virtue had 
kept him alive. Suicide, he had persuaded 
himself, would be a ludicrous insult to the 
gravity of the situation as well as a weak- 
kneed confession of fear. 


218 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“Just for the fun of the thing,” he said to 
the cat, who had taken Binkie’s place in the 
establishment, “I should like to know how 
long this is going to last. I can live for a year 
on the hundred pounds that Torp cashed for 
me. I must have two or three thousand at 
least at the bank — twenty or thirty years more 
provided for, that is to say. Then I fall back 
on my hundred and twenty a year, which will 
be more by that time. Let's consider. 
Twenty-five, thirty-five — a man’s in his prime 
then, they say — forty-five, a middle-aged man 
just entering politics — fifty-five, ‘died at the 
comparatively early age of fifty-five,’ accord- 
ing to the newspapers. Bah ! how these Chris- 
tians funk death ! Sixty-five — we’re only get- 
ting on in years. Seventy- five is just possible, 
though. Great Hell, cat! Oh, fifty years 
more of solitary confinement in the dark ! 
You’ll die, and Beeton will die, and Torp will 
die, and Mai — everybody else will die, but I 
shall be all alive and kicking with nothing to 
do. I’m very sorry for myself. — I should like 
some one else to be sorry for me. Evidently 
I’m not going mad before I die, but the pain’s 
just as bad as ever. Some day when you’re 
vivisected, cat — oh ! they’ll tie you down on a 
little table and cut you open; but don’t be 
afraid; they’ll take precious good care that 
you don’t die. You’ll live, and you’ll be very 
sorry then that you weren’t sorry for me. 
Perhaps Torp will come back or — I wish I 
could go to Torp and the Nilghai. ” 

Pussy left the room before the speech was 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


219 


ended, and Alf, as he entered, found Dick 
addressing the empty hearthrug. 

“There’s a letter for you, sir,” he said. 
“Perhaps you’d like me to read it. ’’ 

“Lend it to me for a minute, and I’ll tell 
you. ’ ’ 

The outstretched hand shook just a little, 
and the voice was not over steady. It is within 
the limits of human possibility that — that was 
no letter from Maisie. He knew the heft of 
three closed envelopes only too well. It was 
a foolish hope that the girl should write to 
him, for he did not realize that there is a 
wrong which admits no reparation, though the 
evil-doer may with tears and the heart’s best 
love strive to mend all. It is best to forget 
that wrong, whether it be caused or endured, 
since it is as remediless as bad work once put 
forward. 

“Read it, then,’’ said Dick, and Alf began 
intoning according to the rules of the Board 
School : 

“I could have given you love, I could have 
given you loyalty such as you never dreamed 
of. Do you suppose I cared what you were? 
But you chose to whistle everything down 
the wind for nothing. My only excuse for 
you is that you are so young. ’ ’ 

“That’s all,’’ he said, returning the paper 
to be dropped into the fire. 

“What was in the letter?’’ asked Mrs. 
Beeton, when Alf returned. 


220 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“I don’t know. I think it was a circular or 
a tract, about not whistling at everything 
when you’re young.” 

“I must have stepped on something when I 
was alive and walking about, and it has 
bounced up and hit me. God help it, whatever 
it is — unless it was all a joke. But I don’t 
know an}^ one who’d take the trouble to play a 
joke on me. . . Love and loyalty for nothing. 
It sounds tempting enough. I wonder 
whether I have lost anything really?” 

He considered for a long time, but could not 
remember when or how he had put himself in 
the way of winning these trifles. 

Still the letter, as touching on matters he 
preferred not to think about, stung him into a 
fit of frenzy that lasted for a day and a night. 
When his heart was so full of despair that it 
would hold no more, body and soul together 
seemed to be dropping without check through 
the darkness. Then came fear of darkness and 
desperate attempts to reach the light again. 
But there was no light to be reached. When 
that agony had left him sweating and breath- 
less, the downward flight would recommence, 
till the gathering torture of it spurred him 
into another fight as hopeless as the first ; fol- 
lowed some few minutes of sleep in which he 
dreamed that he saw. Then the procession of 
events would repeat itself, till he was utterly 
worn out, and the brain took up its everlasting 
consideration of Maisie and might-have-beens. 

At the end of everything Mr. Beeton came 
to his room and volunteered to take him out. 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


221 


“Not marketing this time, but we’ll go into 
the Parks, if you like.” 

“Be damned if I do,” quoth Dick. “Keep 
to the streets and walk up and down. I like 
to hear the people round me.” 

This was not altogether true. The blind, in 
the first stages of their infirmity, dislike those 
who can move with a free stride and uplifted 
arms; but Dick had no desire to go to the 
Parks. Once, and only once, since Maisie had 
shut the door, he had gone there under Alf’s 
charge. Alf forgot him and fished for min- 
nows in the Serpentine with some companions. 
After half an hour’s waiting, Dick, almost 
weeping with rage and wrath, caught a passer- 
by who introduced him to a kindly policeman, 
who led him to a four-wheeler opposite the 
Albert Hall. He never told Mr. Beeton of 
Alf’s forgetfulness, but . . . this was not the 
manner in which he was used to walk the 
Parks aforetime. 

“What streets would you like to walk down, 
then?” said Mr. Beeton, sympathetically. His 
own ideas of a riotous holiday meant picnick- 
ing on the grass of the Green Park with his 
family, and half a dozen paper bags full of food. 

“Keep to the river,” said Dick, and they 
kept to the river, and the rush of it was in his 
ears till they came to Blackfriars Bridge and 
struck thence into the Waterloo Road, Mr. 
Beeton explaining the beauties of the scenery 
as they went on. 

“And walking on the other side of the pave- 
ment,” said he, “unless I’m much mistaken, is 


222 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


the young woman that used to come to your 
rooms to be drawed. I never forgets a face, 
and I never remembers a name, except paying 
tenants, o’ course.” 

“Stop her,” said Dick. “It’s Bessie Broke. 
Tell her I’d like to speak to her again. Quick, 
man!” 

Mr. Beeton crossed the road under the noses 
of the omnibuses and arrested Bessie, then on 
her way northward. She recognized him as a 
man in authority who used to glare at her 
when she passed up the staircase, and her first 
impulse was to run. 

“Wasn’t you Mr. Heldar’s model?” said Mr. 
Beeton, planting himself in front of her. 
“ You was. He’s on the other side of the road 
and he’d like to see you. ” 

“Why?” said Bessie faintly. She remem- 
bered — indeed had never for long forgotten — 
an affair connected with a newly finished pic- 
ture. 

“Because he has asked me to do so, and be- 
cause he’s most particular blind.” 

“Drunk?” 

“No. ’Orspital blind. He can’t see. 
That’s him over there.” 

Dick was leaning against the parapet of the 
bridge as Mr. Beeton pointed him out — a stub- 
bearded, bowed creature, with a dirty, 
magenta-colored neck-cloth outside an un- 
brushed coat. There was nothing to fear from 
such an one. Even if he chased her, Bessie 
thought, he could not follow far. She crossed 
over and Dick’s face lighted up. It was long 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED, 


223 


since a woman oi any kind had taken the 
trouble to speak to him. 

“I hope you’re well, Mr. Heldar!” said Bes- 
sie, a little puzzled. Mr. Beeton stood by with 
the air of an ambassador and breathed respon- 
sibly, 

“I’m very well, indeed, and by Jove, I’m 
glad to see — hear you, I mean, Bess. You 
never thought it worth while to turn up and 
see us again after you got your money. I 
don’t know why you should. Are you going 
anywhere in particular just now?’’ 

‘ ‘ I was going for a walk. ’ ’ 

“Not the old business?’’ Dick spoke under 
his breath. 

“Lor’, no! I paid my premium’’ — Bessie 
was very proud of that word — “for a barmaid 
sleeping in, and I’m at the bar now, quite 
respectable. Indeed I am. ’ ’ 

Mr. Beeton had no particular reason to be- 
lieve in the loftiness of human nature. There- 
fore he dissolved himself like a mist and re- 
turned to his gas-plugs without a word of apol- 
ogy. Bessie watched the flight with a certain 
uneasiness; but so long as Dick appeared to 
be ignorant of the harm that had been done 
him. . . 

“It’s hard work pulling the beer-handles,’’ 
she went on, “and they’ve got one of them 
penny-in-the-slot cash machines, so if you get 
wrong by a penny at the end of the day — but 
then I don’t believe the machinery is right. 
Do you?’’ 

“I’ve only seen it work. Mr. Beeton?’’ 


224 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“He’s gone. ’’ 

“I’m afraid I must ask you to help me home, 
then. I’ll make it worth your while. You 

see ’’ The sightless eyes turned toward 

her and Bessie saw. 

“It isn’t taking you out of your way?’’ he 
said, hesitatingly. “I can ask a policeman, 
if it is. ’’ 

“Not at all. I come on at seven and I’m off 
at four. That’s easy hours. ’’ 

“Good God — but I’m on all the time. I wish 
I had some work to do, too. Let’s go home, 
Bess. ’’ 

He turned and cannoned into a man on the 
sidewalk, recoiling with an oath. Bessie took 
his arm and said nothing, as she had said noth- 
ing when he had ordered her to turn her face 
a little more to the light. They walked for 
some distance in silence, the girl steering him 
deftly through the crowd. 

“And where’s — where’s Mr. Torpenhow?’' 
she inquired at last. 

“He has gone away to the desert. ’’ 

“Where’s that?’’ 

Dick pointed to the right. “East — out of 
the mouth of the river, ’ ’ said he. ‘ ‘ Then west, 
then south, and then east again all along the 
underside of Europe. Then south again God 
knows how far.’’ The explanation did not 
enlighten Bessie in the least, but she held her 
tongue, and looked to Dick’s path till they 
came to the chambers. 

“We’ll have tea and muffins,’’ he said joy- 
ously. “I can’t tell you, Bessie, how glad I 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


225 


am to find you again. What made you go 
away so suddenly?” 

“I didn’t think you’d want me any more,” 
she said, emboldened by his ignorance. 

“I didn’t, as a matter of fact — but after- 
ward At any rate, I’m glad you’ve come. 

You know the stairs.” 

So Bessie led him home to his own place, 
there was no one to hinder, and shut the door 
of the studio. 

‘‘What a mess!” washer first word. “All 
these things haven’t been looked after for 
months and months. ” 

‘‘No, only weeks, Bess. You can’t expect 
them to care. ’ ’ 

‘‘I don’t know what you expect them to do. 
They ought to know what you’ve paid them 
for. The dust’s just awful. It’s all over the 
easel ” 

‘‘I don’t use it much now.” 

“All over the pictures and the floor, and all 
over your coat. I’d like to speak to the house- 
maids. ” 

‘‘Ring for tea, then.” Dick felt his way to 
the chair he used by custom. Bessie saw the 
action, and as far as in her lay was touched. 
But there remained always a keen sense of 
new-found superiority, and it was in her voice 
when she spoke. 

“How long have you been like this?” she 
said, wrathfully, as though the blindness were 
some fault of the housemaids.” 

“How?” 

“As you are?” 

15 Light that Failed 


226 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“The day after you went away with the 
check, almost as soon as my picture was fin- 
ished, I hardly saw it.” 

“Then they’ve been cheating you ever since, 
that’s all. I know their nice little ways. ” 

A woman may love one man and despise 
another, but on general feminine principles 
she will do her best to save the man she 
despises from being defrauded. Her loved 
one can look to himself, but the other man, 
being obviously an idiot, needs protection. 

“I don’t think Mr. Beeton cheats much,” 
said Dick. Bessie was flouncing up and down 
the room, and he was conscious of a keen sense 
of enjoyment as he heard the swish of her 
skirts and the light step between. 

“Tea and muffins,” she said shortly, when 
the ring at the bell was answered: “Two tea- 
spoonfuls and one over for the pot. I don’t 
want the old teapot that was here when I used 
to come. It don’t draw. Get another. ” 

The housemaid went away scandalized, and 
Dick chuckled. Then he began to cough as 
Bessie banged up and down the studio, disturb- 
ing the dust. 

“What are you trying to do?” 

“Put things straight. This is like unfur- 
nislied lodgings. How could you let it go so?” 
“How could I help it? Dust away. ” 

She dusted furiously, and in thermidst of all 
the pother entered Mrs. Beeton. Her hus- 
band had explained the situation, winding up 
with the peculiarly happy proverb, “Do unto 
others as you would be done by. ” She had 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


227 


descended to put into her place the person who 
had demanded muffins and an uncracked tea- 
pot, as though she had a right to both. 

“Muffins ready yet?” said Bess, still dusting. 
She was no longer a drab of the streets, but a 
young lady who, thanks to Dick’s check, had 
paid her premium and was entitled to pull beer- 
handles with the best. Being neatly dressed 
in black, she did not hesitate to face Mrs. 
Beeton, and there passed between the two 
women certain regards that Dick would have 
appreciated. The situation adjusted itself by 
eye ; Bessie had won ; and Mrs. Beeton returned 
to cook muffins and make scathing remarks 
about models, hussies, trollops and the like to 
her husband. 

“There’s nothing to be got of interfering 
with him, Liza,” he said. “Alf, you go along 
into the street to play. When he isn’t crossed 
he’s as kindly as kind, but when he’s crossed 
he’s' the devil and all. We’ve took too many 
little things out of his rooms since he was blind 
to be that particular about what he does. 
They ain’t no objects to a blind man, of course, 
but if it was to come into court we’d get the 
sack. Yes, I did introduce him to that girl 
because I’m a feelin’ man myself.” 

“Much too feelin’!” Mrs. Beeton slapped 
the muffins into the dish, and thought of 
comely housemaids long since dismissed on 
suspicion. 

“I ain’t ashamed of it, and it isn’t for us to 
judge him hard so long as he pays quiet and 
regular as he do. I know how to manage 


228 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


young gentlemen, you know how to cook for 
them and what I say is, let each stick to his 
own business, and then there won’t be any 
trouble. Take them muffins down, Liza, and 
be sure you have no words with that young 
woman. His lot is cruel hard, and if he’s 
crossed he do swear worse than any one I’ve 
ever served.” 

‘‘That’s a little better,” said Bessie, sitting 
down to the tea. ‘‘You needn’t wait, thank 
you, Mrs. Beeton. ” 

‘‘I had no intention of doing such, I do 
assure you. ” 

Bessie made no answer whatever. This, 
she knew, was the way in which real ladies 
routed their foes, and when one is a barmaid 
at a first-class public house one may become a 
real lady at ten minutes’ notice. 

Her eyes fell on Dick opposite her, and she 
was both shocked and displeased. There were 
droppings of food all down the front of his 
coat; the mouth under the ragged, ill-grown 
beard drooped sullenly; the forehead was lined 
and contracted; and on the lean temples the 
hair was a dusty, indeterminate color that might 
or might not have been called gray. The utter 
misery and self-abandonment of the man 
appealed to her, and at the bottom of her heart 
lay the wicked feeling that he“ was humbled 
and brought low, who had once humbled her. 

‘‘By Jove, it is good, to hear you moving 
about,” said Dick, rubbing his hands. ‘‘Tell 
us all about your bar successes, Bessie, and the 
way you live now.” 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


229 


“Never mind that. I’m quite respectable, 
as you’d see by looking at me. You don’t 
seem to live too well. What made you go 
blind that sudden? Why isn’t there any one to 
look after you?” 

Dick was too thankful for the sound of her 
voice to resent the tone of it. 

“I was cut across the head a long time ago, 
and that ruined my eyes. I don’t suppose any- 
body thinks it worth while to look after me any 
more. Why should they? and Mr. Beeton 
really does everything I want.” 

“Didn’t 3^ou know any gentlemen and ladies 
then, while you was — well?” 

“A few, but I don’t care to have them look- 
ing at me. ” 

“I suppose that's why you’ve growed a 
beard. Take it off; it don’t become you.” 

“Good gracious, child, do you imagine that 
I think of what becomes me, these days!” 

‘‘You ought. Get that taken off before I 
come here again. I suppose I can come, can’t 
I?” 

“I’d be only too grateful, if you did. I 
don’t think I treated you very well in the old 
days. I used to make you angry. ” 

“Very angry. You did.” 

“I’m sorry for it, then. Come and see me 
when you can and as often as you can. God 
knows there isn’t a soul in the world to take 
that trouble except you and Mr. Beeton. 

“A lot of trouble he’s taking and she, too.” 
This with a toss of the head. “They’ve let 
you do anyhow and they haven’t done anything 


230 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


for you. I’ve only to look to see that much. 
I’ll come and I’ll be glad to come, but you 
must go and be shaved, and you must get 
some other clothes — these ones aren’t fit to be 
seen. ” 

“I have heaps somewhere,” he said, help- 
lessly. 

‘‘I know you have. Tell Mr. Beeton to give 
you a new suit and I’ll brush and keep it 
clean. You may be as blind as a barn-door, 
Mr. Heldar, but it doesn’t excuse you looking 
like a sweep. ’ ’ 

“Do I look like a sweep, then?” 

“Oh, I’m sorry for you. I am that sorry for 
you,” she said impulsively, and took Dick’s 
hands. Mechanically he lowered his head as 
if to kiss her — she was the only woman who 
had taken pity on him, and he was not too 
proud for a little pity now. She rose to go 
swiftly. 

“Nothing o’ that kind till you look more like 
a gentleman. It’s quite easy if you get shaved 
and some clothes. ’ ’ 

He could hear her drawing on her gloves, 
and rose to say good-by. She passed behind 
him, kissed him audaciously on the back of the 
neck, and ran away as swiftly as when she had 
destroyed the Melancolia. 

“To think of me kissing Mr. Heldar,” she 
said to herself, “after all he’s done to me and 
all. Well, I’m sorry for him, and if he was 
shaved he wouldn’t be so bad to look at, but 
. . . them Beetons! How shameful they’ve 
treated him! I know Beeton’s wearing his 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


231 


shirt on his back to-day, just as well as if I’d 
aired it. To-morrow, I’ll see. ... I wonder 
if he has much of his own. It might be worth 
more than the bar — I wouldn’t have to do any 
work — and just as respectable if no one knew.” 

Dick was not grateful to Bessie for her part- 
ing gift. He was acutely conscious of it in the 
nape of his neck throughout the night, but it 
seemed, among very many other things, to 
enforce the wisdom of getting shaved, and he 
was shaved accordingly in the morning, and 
felt the better for it. A fresh suit of clothes, 
white linen, and the knowledge that some one 
in the world said that she took an interest in 
his personal appearance made him carry him- 
self almost upright. The brain was relieved 
for a while from thinking of Maisie — who, un- 
der other circumstances, might have given 
that kiss, and a million others. 

‘‘Let us consider,” said he, after lunch. 
‘‘The girl can’t care, and it’s a toss up whether 
she comes or not; but if money can buy her 
to look after me, she shall be bought. Nobody 
else in the world would take the trouble. I’ll 
make it worth her while. She’s a child of the 
gutter, holding brevet rank as a barmaid, so 
she shall have everything she wants if she’ll 
only come and talk and look after me.” He 
rubbed his newly shorn chin, and began to 
perplex himself with the thought of her not 
coming. ‘‘I suppose I look rather a sweep,” 
he went on. ‘‘I had no reason to look other- 
wise. I knew things dropped on my clothes, 
but it didn’t matter. It would be cruel if she 


232 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


didn’t come. She must. Maisie came once 
and that was enough for her. She was quite 
right. She had something to work for. This 
creature has only beer-handles to pull, unless 
she has deluded some young man into keeping 
company with her. Fancy being cheated, for 
the sake of a counter-jumper ! We’re falling 
pretty low. ” 

Something cried aloud within him: “This 
will hurt more than anything that has gone be- 
fore. It will recall and remind and suggest 
and tantalize, and in the end drive you 
mad.” 

“I know it, I know it,” Dick cried, clench- 
ing his hands despairingly. “But, good 
Heaven! Is a poor blind beggar never to get 
anything out of this life except three meals a 
day and a greasy waistcoat. I wish she’d 
come!’’ 

Early in the afternoon she came, because 
there was no young man just then in her life, 
and she thought of material advantages, which 
should allow her to be idle for the rest of her 
days. 

“I shouldn’t have known you,’’ she said, 
approvingly. “You look as you used to look — 
a gentleman that was proud of^himself. ’’ 

“Don’t you think I deserve another kiss 
then?’’ said Dick, flushing a little. 

“Maybe — you won’t get it just yet. Sit 
down and let’s see what I can do for you. 
I’m certain sure Mr. Beeton cheats you now 
that you can’t go through the housekeeping 
books every months. Isn’t that true?’* 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


233 


“You’d better come and housekeep for me 
then, Bessie. “ 

“Couldn’t do it in these chambers; you 
know that as well as I do.” 

“I know; but we might go somewhere else 
— if you thought it worth your while.’’ 

“I’d try to look after you, anyhow; but I 
shouldn’t like to have to work for both of us. “ 
This was tentative. 

Dick laughed. 

“Do you remember where I used to keep 
my bank-book? Torp took it to be balanced 
just before he went away. Look and see.’’ 

“It was generally under the tobacco- jar lid. 
Ah!” 

“Well?” 

“Oh! Four thousand two hundred and ten 
pounds, nine shillings, and a penny.” 

“You can have the penny. That’s one 
year’s work. Is that and a hundred and 
twenty pounds a year good enough?” 

The idleness and the pretty clothes were 
almost within her reach now, but she must 
show that she deserved them. 

“Yes; but you’d have to move, and if we 
took an inventory I think we’d find that Mr. 
Beeton has been prigging little things out of 
the rooms here and there. They don’t look as 
full as they used. ’ ’ 

“Never mind; we’ll let him have them. 
The only thing I’m particularly anxious to 
take away is that picture I used you for — when 
you used to swear at me. We’ll pull out of 

19 Light that Failed 


234 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED, 


this place, Bess, and get away as far as ever 
we can.” 

“Oh, yes,” she said uneasily. 

“I don’t know where I can go to get away 
from myself, but I’ll try; and you shall have 
all the pretty frocks that you care for; you’ll 
like that. Give me the kiss now, Bess. Ye 
gods! It’s good to put one’s arm round a 
woman’s waist again.” 

Then came the fulfillment of the prophecy 
within the brain. If his arm were thus round 
Maisie’s waist and a kiss had just been given 
and taken between them — why, then — he 
pressed the girl more closely to himself because 
the pain whipped him. She was wondering 
how to explain a little accident to the Melan- 
colia. At any rate, if this man really desired 
the solace of her company — and certainly he 
would relapse into his original slough if she 
withdrew it — he would not be more than just 
a little vexed. It would be delightful at least 
to see what would happen, and by her teach- 
ings it was good for a man to stand in a cer- 
tain awe of his companion. 

She laughed nervously, and slipped out of 
his reach. 

“I shouldn’t worrit about that picture if I 
was you,” she began, in the hope of turning his 
attention. 

‘‘It’s at the back of all my canvases some- 
where. Find it, Bess; you know it as well as 
I do.” 

‘‘I know— but ” 

‘‘But what? You’ve wit enough to manage 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


235 


the sale of it to a dealer. Women haggle 
much better than men. It might be a matter 
of eight or nine hundred pounds to — to us. I 
simply didn’t like to think about it for a long 
time. It was mixed up with my life so. But 
we’ll cover up our tracks and get rid of every- 
thing, eh? Make a fresh start from the begin- 
ning, Bess.” 

Then she began to repent very much indeed, 
because she knew the value of money. Still, 
it was probable that the blind man was over es- 
timating the value of his work. Gentlemen, 
she knew, were absurdly particular about their 
things. She giggled as a housemaid giggles 
when she tries to explain the breakage of a 
pipe. 

‘‘I’m very sorry, but you remember I was — 
I was angry with you before Mr. Torpenhow 
went away?” 

‘‘You were very angry, child; and on my 
word I think you had some right to be.” 

“Then I — but aren’t you sure Mr. Torpen- 
how didn’t tell you?” 

“Tell me what? Good gracious, what are 
you making such a fuss about when you might 
just as well be giving me another kiss. ” 

He was beginning to learn, not for the first 
time in his experience, that kissing is a cumu- 
lative poison. The more you get of it, the 
more you want. Bessie gave the kiss promptly, 
whispering as she did so: “I was so angry I 
rubbed out that picture with the turpentine. 
You aren’t angry, are you?” 


236 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“What? Say that again. ’ ' The man’s hand 
Lad closed on her wrist. 

“1 rubbed it out with the turps and the 
knife,” faltered Bessie. “I thought you’d 
only have to do it over again. You did do it 
over again, didn’t you? Oh, let go my wrist, 
you’re hurting me!” 

“Isn’t there anything left of the thing?” 

“N-nothing that looks like anything. I’m 
sorry — I didn’t know you’d take on about it, I 
only meant to do it in fun. You aren’t going 
to hit me?” 

“Hit you! No! Let’s think. ” 

He did not relax his hold upon her wrist, 
but stood looking, so far as a blind man can 
look, at the carpet. Then he shook his head 
as a young steer shakes it when the lash of the 
stock-whip across his nose warns him back to 
the path to the shambles that he would escape 
from. For some weeks he had forced himself 
not to think of the Melancolia because she 
was a part of his dead life. With Bessie’s re- 
turn ancFcertain new prospects that had devel- 
oped themselves the Melancolia lovelier in his 
imagination than she had ever been on can- 
vas — reappeared. By her aid he might have 
procured more money wherewith to amuse 
Bess and to forget Maisie, as well as another 
taste of almost forgotten success. Now, 
thanks to a vicious little housemaid’s folly, 
there was nothing to look for — not even the 
hope that he might some day take an abiding 
interest in the housemaid. Worst of all, he 
had been made to appear ridiculous in Maisie’s 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


287 


eyes. A woman will forgive the man who has 
ruined her life’s work so long as he gives her 
love. A man may forgive those who ruin the 
love of his life, but he will never forgive the 
destruction of his work. 

“Tck — tck — tck,” said Dick, between his 
teeth, and then laughed softly. “ It’s an omen, 
Bessie, and, a good many things considered, 
it serves me right for doing what I have done. 
By Jove, that accounts for Maisie’s running 
away. She must have thought me perfectly 
mad. Small blame to her! The whole pic- 
ture ruined! Isn’t it so? What made you do 
it?” 

“Because I was that angry. I’m not angry 
now — I’m awful sorry.” 

“I wonder — it doesn’t matter, anyhow. I’m 
to blame for making the mistake.” 

“What mistake?” 

“Something you wouldn’t understand. 
Great Heavens! To think that a little piece 
of dirt like you could throw me out of my 
stride!” Dick was talking to himself as Bes- 
sie tried to shake off his grip on her wrist. 

“I’m not a piece of dirt You shouldn’t call 
me so! I did it ’cause I hated you, and I’m 
only sorry now ’cause you’re — ’cause 
you’re ” 

“Exactly. Because I’m blind. There’s 
nothing like tact in little things.” 

Bessie began to sob. She did not like being 
shackled against her will ; she was afraid of 
the blind face and the look upon it, and she 


238 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


was sorry, too, that her great revenge had 
only made Dick laugh. 

“Don’t cry,” he said, and took her into his 
arms. “You only did what you thought 
right. ” 

“I — I ain’t a little piece of dirt, and if you 
say that I’ll never come to you again.” 

“You don’t know what you’ve done to me. 
I’m not angry — indeed I’m not. Be quiet for 
a minute. ” 

Bessie remained in his arms, shrinking, 
Dick’s first thought was connected with Maisie, 
and it hurt him as white-hot iron hurts an open 
sore. 

Not for nothing is a man permitted to ally 
himself to the wrong woman. The first pang 
— the first sense of things lost — is but the pre- 
lude to the play, for the very just Providence 
who delights in causing pain has decreed that 
the agony shall return, and that in the midst of 
other pleasures. They know this pain equally 
who have forsaken or been forsaken by the 
love of their life, and in their new wives’ arms 
realize it most acutely. It is better to remain 
alone and suffer only the misery of being 
alone, so long as it is possible to find distrac- 
tion in daily work. When that resource goes 
the man is to be pitied and left very much 
alone. 

These things and some others Dick realized 
while he was holding Bessie to his heart. 

“Though you mayn’t know it,” he said, rais- 
ing his head, “the Lord is a just and terrible 
God, Bess, with a very strong sense of humor. 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


239 


It serves me right. How it serves me right! 
Torp could understand it if he were here — he 
must have suffered something at your hands, 
child, but only for a minute or so. I saved 
him. Set that to my credit. ” 

*‘Let me go,” said Bess, her face darkening. 
“Let me go ” 

“All in good time. Did you ever attend 
Sunday school?” 

“Never. Let me go, I tell you. You’re 
making fun of me.” 

“Indeed I’m not. I’m making fun of myself. 
Thus: ‘He saved others, himself he cannot 
save.’ It isn’t exactly a school-board text. ” 
He released her wrist, but since he was between 
her and the door she could not escape. “What 
an enormous amount of mischief one little 
woman can do.” 

“I’m sorry, I’m awful sorry, about the pic- 
ture. ’ ’ 

“I’m not. I’m grateful to you for spoiling 
it. What were we talking about before you 
mentioned the thing?” 

“About getting away — and money. Me 
and you going away. ’ ’ 

“Of course. We will get away. That is to 
say, I will.” 

“And me?” 

“You shall have fifty whole pounds for spoil- 
ing a picture. ” 

“Then you won’t ” 

“I’m afraid not, dear. Think of fifty pounds 
for pretty things all to yourself. ” 


240 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“You said you couldn’t do anything without 
me. ” 

“That was true a little while ago. I’m bet- 
ter now, thank you. Get me my hat.” 

“S’pose I don’t?” 

“Beeton will, and you’ll lose fifty pounds. 
That’s all. ” 

Bessie swore under her breath. She had 
pitied the man sincerely, and had kissed him 
with almost equal sincerity, for he was not un- 
handsome, it pleased her to be in a way and 
for a time his protector, and, above all, there 
were four thousand pounds to be handled by 
some one. Now through a slip of the tongue 
and a little feminine desire to give a little — not 
too much — pain, she had lost the money, the 
blessed idleness, and the pretty things, the 
companionship, and the chance of looking out- 
wardly as respectable as a real lady. 

“Fill me a pipe. Tobacco doesn’t taste, . 
but it doesn’t matter. What’s the day of the 
week, Bess?” 

“Tuesday. ” 

“Then Thurday’s mail day. What a fool — 
what a blind fool I have been ! Twenty-two 
pounds covers my passage out. Ten for addi- 
tional expenses; we must put up at Madame 
Binat’s for old sake’s sake. Thirty-two alto- 
gether. Add a hundred for the cost of the last 
trip. Gad, won’t Torp stare to see me. A 
hundred and thirty-two leaves seventy-eight 
for baksheesh — I shall need it — and to play with. 
What are you crying for, Bess? It wasn’t your 
fault, child. It was mine altogether. Oh, 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


241 


you funny little opossum ; mop your eyes and 
take me out. I want the pass-book and the 
check-book. Stop a minute. Four thousand at 
four per cent. — that’s safe interest — means a 
hundred and sixty. One hundred and twenty 
— also safe — is two eighty; and two hundred 
and eighty pounds added to three hundred, 
mean gilded luxury for a single woman. Bess, 
we’ll go to the bank.” 

Richer by two hundred and ten pounds stored 
in his money-belt, Dick caused Bessie, now 
thoroughly bewildered, to hurry to the P. & O. 
offices, where he explained things tersely. 

“Port Said: single first; cabin as close to the 
baggage-hatch as possible. What ship’s 
going?” 

‘‘The Colgong.” 

‘‘She’s a wet littie hooker. Is it Tilbury 
and a tender, or Galleons and the docks?” 

‘‘Galleons, twelve-forty, Thursday.” 

‘‘Thanks. Change, please. I can’t see very 
well — will you count it into my hand?” 

“If they all took their passages like that in- 
stead of talking about their trunks, life would 
be worth something,” said the clerk to his 
neighbor, who was trying to explain to a har- 
assed mother of many that condensed milk is 
just as good for babies at sea as daily dairy. 
Being nineteen and unmarried, he spoke with 
conviction. 

“We are now,” quoth Dick, as they re- 
turned to the studio, patting the place where 
his money-belt covered ticket and money, 
“beyond the reach of man, or devil, or woman 
16 


242 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


— which is much more important. I’ve three 
little affairs to carry through before 'Thursday, 
but I needn’t ask you to help. Come on 
Thursday morning, at nine. We’ll breakfast, 
and you shall take me down to Galleons Sta- 
tion.” 

“What are you going to do?” 

“Going away, of course. What should I stay* 
for?” 

“But you can’t look after yourself?” 

“I can do anything. I didn’t realize it be- 
fore, but 1 can. I’ve done a great deal 
already. Resolution shall be treated to one 
kiss, if Bessie doesn’t object.” Strangely 
enough, Bessie objected and Dick laughed. 
“I suppose you’re right. Well, come at nine 
the day after to-morrow and you’ll get your 
money.” 

“Shall I?” 

“Pdon’t bilk, and you won’t know whether 
I do or not unless you come. Oh, but it’s 
long and long to wait! Good-by, Bessie. 
Send Beeton here as you go out!” 

The housekeeper came. 

“What are all the fittings of my rooms 
worth?” said Dick. 

“ 'Tisn’t for me to say, sir. Some things is 
very pretty and some is wore out dreadful.” 

“I’ve insured for two hundred and seventy. ” 

“Insurance policies is no criterion, tho’ I 
don’t say ” 

“Oh, damn your long-windedness! You’ve 
made your pickings out of me and the other 
tenants. Why, you talked of retiring and buy- 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


243 


ing a public house the other day. Give a 
straight answer to a straight question.” 

“Fifty,” said Mr. Beeton, without a mo- 
ment’s hesitation. 

“Double it; or I’ll break up half my sticks 
and burn the rest.” 

He felt his way to a book-stand that sup- 
ported a pile of sketch-books, and wrenched 
out one of the mahogany pillars. 

“That’s sinful, sir,” said the housekeeper. 

“It’s my own. One hundred or ” 

“One hundred it is. It’ll cost me three and 
six to get that there pilaster mended.” 

“I thought so. What an out-and-out swin- 
dler you must have been to spring that price at 
once.” 

“I hope I’ve done nothing to dissatisfy any 
of the tenants, least of all you, sir.” 

“Never mind that. Give me the money to- 
morrow, and see that all my clothes are 
packed in the little brown bullock trunk. I’m 
going. 

“But the quarter’s notice?” 

• “I’ll pay forfeit. Look after the packing 
and leave me alone.” 

Mr. Beeton discussed this new departure 
with his wife, who decided that Bessie was at 
the bottom of it all. Her husband took a more 
charitable view. 

“It’s very sudden — but then he was always 
sudden in his ways. Listen to him now!” 

There was a sound of chanting from Dick’s 
rooms: 


244 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“We’ll never come back any more, boys, 

We’ll never come back no more ; 

We’ll go to the deuce on any excuse, 

And never come back no more. 

“Oh, say we’re afloat or ashore, boys. 

Oh, say we're afloat or ashore, 

But we’ll never come back any more, boys, 

We’ll never come back no more.’’ 

“Mr. Beeton! Mr. Beeton! Where the deuce 
is my pistol?” 

“Quick, he’s going to shoot himself — ’avin’ 
gone mad!” said Mrs. Beeton. 

Mr. Beeton addressed Dick soothingly, and 
it was some time before the latter, threshing 
up and down his bedroom, could realize the 
intention of the promises to “find everything 
to-morrow, sir.” 

“Oh, you copper-nosed old fool! You im- 
potent academician!” he shouted at last. 
“Do you suppose I want to shoot myself? 
Take the pistol in your silly, shaking hand 
then. If you touch it, it will go off, because 
it’s loaded. It’s among my campaign kit 
somewhere — the parcel at the bottom of the 
trunk.” 

Long ago Dick had carefully possessed him- 
self of a forty-pound weight field equipment, 
constructed by the knowledge in his own ex- 
perience. It was this put-away treasure he 
was trying to find and rehandle. Mr. Beeton 
whipped the revolver out of its place on the 
top of the package, and Dick drove his hand 
among the Khaki coat and breeches, the blue 
cloth legbands, and the heavy flannel shirts 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


245 


doubled over a pair of swan-neck spurs. Un- 
der these and the water-bottle lay a sketch- 
book and a pigskin stationery case. 

“These we don’t want. You can have 
them. Everything else I’ll keep. Pack ’em 
on the top right-hand side of my trunk. 
When you’ve done that, come into the studio 
with your wife. I want you both. Wait a 
minute. Get me a pen and a sheet off one of 
my sketch blocks, if you know where they 
are. ’ ’ 

It is not an easy thing to write when you 
cannot see, and Dick had particular reasons 
for wishing that his work should be clear. So 
he began following his right hand with his 
left: “The badness of this writing is because 
I am blind and cannot see my pen. Humph. 
Even a lawyer can’t mistake that. It must be 
signed, I suppose, but it needn’t be witnessed. 
Now an inch lower — why did I never learn to 
use a typewriter? ‘Thisjs the last Will and 
Testament of me, Richard Heldar. I am in 
sound bodily and mental health, and there is 
no previous will to revoke. ’ That’s all right. 
Damn the pen! Whereabouts on the paper 
was I? ‘I leave everything that I possess in 
the world, including four thousand pounds and 
two thousand seven hundred and twenty-eight 

pounds held for me ’ Oh, I can’t get this 

straight.’’ He tore off half the sheet and be- 
gan again with the caution about the hand- 
writing. Then: “ ‘I leave all the money I 
possess in the world to ’ ’’ here followed 


246 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


Maisie’s name, and the names of the two banks 
that held his money. 

“It mayn’t be quite regular, but no one has 
a shadow of right to dispute it, and I’ve given 
Maisie’s address. Come in, Mr. Beeton. 
This is my signature. You’ve seen it often 
enough to know it. I want you and your wife 
to witness it. Thanks. To-morrow you must 
take me to the landlord, and I’ll pay forfeit for 
leaving without notice, and I’ll lodge this 
paper with him in case anything happens when 
I’m away. Now we’re going to light up the 
studio stove. Stay with me in case I set the 
place afire, and give me my papers as I want 
’em. ’’ 

No one knows until he has tried how fine a 
blaze a year’s accumulation of bills, letters and 
dockets can make. Dick stuffed into the 
stove every document in the studio — saving 
, only three unopened letters — destroyed sketch- 
books, rough note-books, new and half-finish- 
ed canvases alike. 

“What a lot of rubbish a tenant gets about 
him if he stays long enough in one place, to be 
sure,’’ said Mr. Beeton, at last. 

“He does. Is there anything more left?’" 
Dick felt round the walls. 

“Not a thing, and the stove’s nigh red-hot. ’’ 

“Excellent You’ve lost about a thousand 
pounds’ worth of sketches. Ho! ho! Quite 
a thousand pounds’ worth, if I can remember 
what I used to be.’’ 

“Yes, sir,’’ politely. Mr. Beeton was quite 
sure that Dick had gone mad, otherwise he 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


247 


would have never parted with his excellent 
furniture for a song. The canvas things took 
up storage-room and were much better out of 
the way. 

There remained only to leave the little will 
in safe hands; that could not be accomplished 
till to-morrow. Dick groped about the floor, 
picking up the last pieces of paper; assured 
himself again and again that there remained 
no written word or sign of his past life in 
drawer or desk, and sat down before the stove 
till the fire died out and the contracting iron 
began to crack in the silence of the night. 


248 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

With a heart of furious fancies 
Whereof I am commander, 

With a burning spear and a horse of air 
To the wilderness I wander. 

With a knight of ghosts and shadows. 

I summoned am to tourney — 

Ten leagues beyond the wide world’s end 
Methinks it is no journey. 

— Tom A’ Bedlam’s Song. 

“Good-by, Bess; I promised you fifty. 
Here’s a hundred. All that I got for my fur- 
niture from Beeton. That will lasty you in 
pretty frocks for some time. You’ve been a 
good little girl, all things considered, but 
you’ve given me and Torpenhow a fair amount 
of trouble.’’ 

“Give Mr. Torpenhow m)^ love if you see 
him, won’t you?’’ 

“Of course, I will, dear. Now take me up 
the gang-plank and into the cabin. Once 
aboard the lugger and the maid is — and I am 
free, I mean. ’’ 

“Who’ll look after you on the ship?’’ 

“The head steward, if there’s any use in 
money. The Doctor, when we come to Port 
Said, if I know anything of P. & O. doctors. 
After that, the Lord will provide, as he used 
to do. ’ ’ 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


249 


Bess found him in his cabin in the wild tur- 
moil of a ship full of leave-takers and weeping 
relatives. Then he kissed her, and laid him- 
self down in his bunk until the decks should 
be clear. He understood the geography of a 
ship, who had taken so long to move about his 
own darkened rooms; and the necessity of see- 
ing to his own comforts was as wine to him. 
Before the screw began to thrash the ship 
along the docks, he had been introduced to 
the head steward, had royally tipped him, 
secured his own place at table, opened out his 
baggage, and settled himself down with joy in 
the cabin. It was scarcely necessary to feel 
his way as he moved about. He knew every- 
thing so well. Then God was very kind, for 
a deep sleep of weariness came upon him just 
as he would have thought of Maisie, and he 
slept till the steamer had cleared the mouth 
of the Thames and was lifting to the pulse of 
the Channel. 

The rattle of the engines, the reek of oil and 
paint, and a very familiar sound in the next 
cabin, roused him to his new inheritance. 

“Oh, it’s good to be alive again!’’ he yawn- 
ed, stretched himself vigorously, and went on 
deck, to be told that they were almost abreast 
of the lights of Brighton. This is no more 
open water than Trafalgar Square is a com- 
mon. The free levels begin at Ushant, but 
nonetheless Dick could feel the healing of the 
sea at work upon him already. A boisterous 
little cross-swell swung the steamer disrespect- 
fully by the nose; and one wave, breaking far 


250 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


aft, spattered the quarter-deck and the pile of 
new deck-chairs. He heard the foam fall with 
the clash of broken glass, was stung in the 
face by a cupful, and sniffing luxuriously, felt 
his way to the smoking-room by the wheel. 
There a strong breeze found him, blew his cap 
off, and left him bareheaded in the doorway; 
and the smoking-room steward, understanding 
that he was a voyager of experience, said that 
the weather would be stiff in the chops of the 
Channel, and more than half a gale in the 
Bay. These things fell as they were foretold, 
and Dick enjoyed himself to the utmost. It 
is allowable and even necessary at sea to lay 
firm hold upon tables, stanchions, and ropes in 
moving from place to place. On land the man 
who feels with his hands is patiently blind. At 
sea even a blind man, who is not sea-sick, can 
jest with the Doctor over the weakness of his 
fellows. Dick told the Doctor many tales — 
and these are coin of more value than silver if 
properly handed — smoked with him till unholy 
hours of the night, and so won his short-lived 
regard that he promised to give Dick a few 
hours of his time when they came to Port 
Said. 

And the sea roared or was still as the winds 
blew, and the engines sang their stately tune 
day and night, and the sun grew stronger day 
by day, and Tom, the Lascar barber, shaved 
Dick of a morning under the open hatch grat- 
ing where the cool winds rioted, and the awn- 
ings were spread and the passengers made 
merry, and at last they came to Port Said. 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


251 


“Take me,” said Dick to the Doctor, “to 
Madame Binat’s — if you know where that is.” 

“Whew!” said the Doctor, “I do. There’s 
not much to choose between ’em, but I sup- 
pose you know that that’s one of the worst 
houses in the place. They’ll rob you to begin 
with, and knife you later.” 

“Not they. Take me there, and I can look 
after myself. ” 

So he was brought to Madame Binat’s and 
filled his nostrils with the well-remembered 
smell of the East, that runs without a change 
from the Canal-head to Hong- Kong, and his 
mouth with the villainous Lingua Franca of 
the Levant. The heat smote him between the 
shoulder blades with the buffet of an old 
friend, his feet slipped on the sand, and his 
coat sleeve was warm as new-baked bread 
when he lifted it to his nose. Madame 
Binat smiled with the smile that knows no^ 
astonishment, when Dick entered the drinking- 
shop which was one source of her gains. But 
fora little accident of complete darkness, he 
could hardly realize that he had ever quitted 
the old life that hummed in his ears. Some- 
body opened a bottle of peculiarly strong 
Schiedam, and the smell reminded Dick of 
Monsieur Binat, who, by the way, had spoken 
of art and degradation. Binat was dead, 
Madame said as much, when the Doctor 
departed scandalized, as far as a ship’s doctor 
can be, at the warmth of Dick’s reception. 
Dick was delighted at it. “They remember 
me after a year. They have forgotten me 


252 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


across the water by this time. Madame, I 
want a long talk with you when you’re at lib- 
erty. It is good to be back again. ” 

In the evening she set an iron-topped cafe- 
table out on the sands, and Dick and she sat 
by it, while the house behind her filled with 
riot, merriment, oaths, and threats. The 
stars came out and the lights of the shipping 
in the harbor twinkled by the head of the 
Canal. 

“Yes. The war is good for trade, my 
friend: but what dost thou do here? We have 
not forgotten thee.” 

“I was over there and I went blind.” 

“But there was the glory first. We heard 
of it here, even here — I and Binat; and thou 
hast used the head of Yellow Tina — she is still 
alive — so often and so well that Tina and I 
laughed when the papers arrived by the mail- 
boats. It was always something that we here 
could recognize in the paintings. And then 
there was always the glory and the money for 
thee. ” 

“I am not poor, I shall pay you well.” 

“Not to me. Thou hast paid for every- 
thing.” Under her breath: “Mon Dieu — to 
be blind and so young. What horror!” 

Dick could not see her face with the pity on 
it, or his own with the discolored hair at the 
temples. He did not feel the need of pity: he 
was too anxious to get to the front once more, 
and explained his desire. 

“And where? The Canal is full of the Eng- 
lish ships. Sometimes they fire as they used 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


253 


to do when the war was here — ten years ago. 
Beyond Cairo there is fighting, but how canst 
thou go there without a correspondent’s pass- 
port? And in the desert there is always fight- 
ing, but that is impossible also,” said she. 

“I must go to Suakim. ” He knew, thanks 
to Alf, where Torpenhow was at work, with 
the column that was protecting the construction 
of the Suakim- Berber line. P. & O. steamers 
do not touch at that port, and, besides, Madame 
Binat knew everybody whose help or advice 
were worth anything. They were not respect- 
able folks, but they could cause things to be 
accomplished, which is much more important 
when there is work toward. 

‘‘But at Suakim they are always fighting. 
That desert breeds men always — and always 
more men. And they are so bold. Why to 
Suakim?” 

‘‘My friend is there.” 

“Thy friend! Chtt! Thy friend is death, 
then. ” 

Madame Binat dropped a fat arm on the 
table-top, filled Dick’s glass again, and looked 
at him closely. There was no need that he 
should bow his head in assent and say: 

“No. He is a man, but if it should arrive 
. . . blamest thou?” 

“I blame?” she laughed shrilly. “Who am 
I that I should blame any one — except those 
who try to cheat me over their consommations. 
But it is very terrible. ” 

“I must go to Suakim. Think for me. A 
great deal has changed within the year, and 


254 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


the men I knew are not here. The Egyptian 
lighthouse steamer goes down the Canal to 
Suakim — and the post boats — But even then 


“Do not think any longer. I know, and it 
is for me to think. Thou shalt go — thou shalt 
go and see thy friends. Be wise. Sit here 
until the house is a little quiet — I must attend 
to my guests. And afterward go to bed. 
Thou shalt go. In truth thou shalt go. “ 

“To-morrow?” 

“As soon as may be.” She was talking as 
though he were a child. 

He sat at the table, listening to the voices in 
the harbor and the streets, and wondering how 
soon the end would come till Madame Binat 
carried him off to bed and ordered him to sleep. 
The house shouted and sang and danced and 
reveled; Madame Binat moving through it 
with one eye on the liquor payments and the 
girls, and the other on Dick’s interests. To 
this latter end she smiled upon the scowling 
and furtive Turkish officers of fellaheen regi- 
ments, was gracious to Cypriote commissariat 
underlings, and more than kind to camel-agents 
of no nationality whatever. 

In the early morning, being then appropri- 
ately dressed in a flaming red silk ball-dress, 
with a front of tarnished gold embroidery, and 
a necklace of plate-glass diamonds, she made 
chocolate and carried it in to Dick. 

“It is only I — and I am of discreet age. 
Eh? Drink — and eat the roll too. Thus in 
France mothers bring their sons, when those 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


255 


behave wisely, the morning chocolate.” She 
sat down on the side of the bed. 

‘‘It is all arranged. Thou wilt go by the 
lighthouse boat. That is a bribe of ten pounds 
English. The captain is never paid by the 
Government. The boat comes to Suakim in 
four days. There will go with thee George, a 
Greek muleteer — another bribe of ten pounds. 
I will pay. They must not know of thy 
money. George will go with thee as far as he 
goes with his mules. Then he comes back to 
me, for his well-beloved is here, and if I do 
not receive a telegram from Suakim saying 
that thou are well — the girl answers for 
George.” 

‘‘Thank you.” He reached out sleepily for 
the cup. ‘‘You are much too kind, Madame.” 

‘‘If there were anything that I might do I 
would say, stay here and be wise — but I do not 
think that would be best for thee. ’ ’ She looked 
at her liquor-stained dress with a sad smile. 
‘‘Nay, thou shalt go. In truth thou shalt go. 
It is best so. My boy, it is best so. ” 

She stooped and kissed Dick between the 
eyes. ‘‘That is for good-morning,” she said, 
going away. “When thou art dressed we 
will speak to George, and make everything 
ready. But first we must open the little trunk. 
Give me the keys.” 

“The amount of kissing lately has been 
simply scandalous. I shall expect Torp to kiss 
me next. He is more likely to swear at me 
for getting in his way, though. Well, it won’t 
last long. . . . Ohe, Madame, help me to my 


256 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


toilet of the guillotine! There’s no chance of 
dressing properly out yonder.” 

He was rummaging among his new campaign 
kit, and roweling his hands with the spurs. 
There are two ways of wearing well-oiled 
ankle-jacks, spotless blue leg-bands, a khaki 
coat and breeches, and a perfectly pipe-clayed 
helmet. The right way is the way of the 
untried man, master of himself, setting out 
upon an expedition well pleased. 

“Everything must be very correct,” Dick 
explained. “It will become dirty afterward, 
but now it is good to feel well dressed. Is 
everything as it should be?” 

He patted the revolver neatly hidden under 
the fullness of the blouse on the right hip, and 
fingered his collar. 

“I can do no more,” Madame said, between 
laughing and crying. “Look at thyself — but 
I forgot. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ I am very content. ’ ’ He stroked the crease- 
less spirals of his leggins. “Now let us go 
and see the captain and George and the light- 
house boat. Be quick, Madame. ” 

“But thou canst not be seen by the harbor 
walking with me in the daylight. Figure to 

yourself if some English ladies ” 

“There are no English ladies, and if there 
are I have forgotten them. Take me there. ’ ’ 
In spite of his burning impatience, it was 
nearly twilight ere the lighthouse boat began 
to move. Madame had said a great deal both 
to George and the captain touching the arrange- 
ments that were to be made for Dick’s benefit. 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 257 

Very few who had the honor of her acquaint- 
ance cared to diregard Madame ’s advice. 
That sort of contempt might end in being 
knifed by a stranger in a gambling-hell, upon 
surprisingly short provocation. ■ 

For six days — two of them were wasted in 
the crowded Canal — the little steamer worked 
her way to Suakim, where she was to pick up 
the Superintendent of Lighthouses, and Dick 
made it his business to propitiate George, who 
was distracted with fears for the safety of his 
light-of-love, and half inclined to make Dick 
responsible for his own discomfort. When 
they arrived, George took him under his wing 
and together they entered the red-hot sea-port, 
that was encumbered with the material and 
wastage of the Suakim-Berber line, from 
locomotives in disconsolate sections to mounds 
of chairs and pot-sleepers. 

“If you keep with me,” said George, 
“nobody will ask for passports or what you do. 
They are all very busy.” 

“Yes, but I should like to hear some of the 
Englishmen talk. They might remember me. 
I was known here a long time ago — when I was 
some one indeed.” 

“A long time ago is a very long time ago 
here. The graveyards are full. Now listen. 
This new railway runs out as far as Tanai-el- 
Hassan. That is seven miles. Then there is 
a camp. They say that beyond Tanai-el-Has- 
san the English troops go forward, and every- 
thing that they require will be brought to 
them by this line. ” 

17 Light that Failed 


268 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“Ah! Base camp! I see. That’s a better 
business than fighting Fuzzies in the open.’’ 

“For this reason even the mules go up in 
the iron- train. ’’ 

“Iron what?’’ 

“It is all covered with iron, because it is 
still being shot at. ’’ 

“An armored train. Better and better. 
Goon, faithful George!’’ 

“And I go up with my mules to-night. Only 
those who particularly require to go to the 
camp go out with the train. They begin to 
shoot not far from the city.” 

“The dears! They always used to. ’ ’ He 
sniffed the smell of parched dust, heated iron, 
and flaking paint with delight. Certainly the 
old life was welcoming him back most gener- 
ously. 

“When I have got my mules together I go 
up to-night, but you must first send a telegram 
to Port Said, declaring that I have done you no 
harm. ’’ 

“Madame has you well in hand. Would 
you stick a knife into me if you had the 
chance?’’ 

“I have no chance,’’ said the Greek. “She 
is there with that woman.’’ 

“I see. It’s a bad thing to be divided 
between love of women and the chance of loot. 
I sympathize with you, George.’’ 

They went to the telegraph office unques- 
tioned, for all the world was desperately busy, 
and had scarcely time to turn its head, and 
Suakim was the last place under the sky that 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


259 


would be chosen for holiday-ground. On their 
return the voice of an English subaltern asked 
Dick what he was doing. The blue goggles 
were over his eyes and he walked with his 
j hand on George’s elbow. 

“Egyptian Government — mules. My orders 
are to give them over to the A. C. G. at Tanai- 
I el - Hassan. Any occasion to show my 
- papers?” 

^ “Oh, certainly not. I beg your pardon. I’d 
I no right to ask, but not seeing your face before 

“I go out in the train to-night, I suppose,” 
said Dick boldly. “There will be no diffi- 
culty in loading up the mules, will there?” 

“You must see the horse-platforms from 
here. You must have them loaded up early.” 
The young man went away wondering what 
sort of broken down waif this might be who 
talked like a gentleman and consorted with 
Greek muleteers. Dick felt unhappy. To 
outface an English officer is no small thing, 
but the bluff loses relish when one plays it 
from utter darkness and stumbles up and 
down rough ways thinking of what might have 
been if matters had arranged themselves 
otherwise. 

George shared his meal with Dick, and went 
off to the mule-lines. His charge sat alone in 
a shed with his face in his hands, but between 
that and those came the face of Maisie, laugh- 
ing with parted lips. There was a great bustle 
and clamor about him. He grew afraid, and 
almost called for George. 


260 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“I say, have you got your mules ready?” It 
was the voice of the subaltern. 

“My man’s looking after them. The — the 
fact is, I’ve a touch of ophthalmia, and I can’t 
see very well. ’ ’ 

“By Jove, that’s bad. You ought to lie up 
in hospital for a while. I’ve had a turn of it 
myself. It’s as bad as being blind. ” 

“So I find it. When does this armored train 
go?’’ 

“At six o’clock. It takes an hour to cover 
the seven miles. ” 

“Fuzzies on the rampage —eh?’’ 

“About three nights a week. Fact is, I’m 
in acting command of the night-train. It gen- 
erally runs back empty to Tanai for the 
night. ” 

“Big camp at Tanai, I suppose?” 

“Pretty big. It has to reed the desert-col- 
umn, somehow.” 

“Is that far off?” 

“Between thirty and forty miles — in an 
infernal thirsty country.” 

“Is the country quiet between Tanai and our 
men?” 

“More or less. I shouldn’t care to cross it 
alone or with a subaltern’s command, for mat- 
ter of that; but the scouts get through in some 
extraordinary fashion.” 

“They always did.” 

“Have you been here before, then?” 

“I was through most of the trouble when it 
first broke out. ” 

“In the service and cashiered,” was the 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


261 


subaltern’s first thought. So he refrained 
from putting any questions. 

“There’s your man coming up with the 
mules. It seems rather queer ” 

“That I should be mule-leading?’’ 

“I didn’t mean to say so, but it is. Forgive 
me — it’s beastly impertinence, I know, but 
you talk like a man who has been at a public 
school. There’s no mistaking the voice.’’ 

“I am a public-school man.’’ 

“I thought so. I say, I don’t want to hurt 
your feelings, but you’re a little down on 
your luck, aren’t you? I saw you sitting with 
your head in your hands, and that's why I 
spoke. ’’ 

“Thanks. I am about as thoroughly and 
completely broke as a man need be.’’ 

“Suppose — I mean. I’m a public- school man 
myself. Couldn’t I, perhaps — take it as a loan, 
y’ know, and ’’ 

“You’re much too good, but on my honor, 
I’ve as much money as I want ... I tell you 
what you could do for me, though, and put me 
under an everlasting obligation. Let me come 
into the bogie truck of the train. There is a 
fore-truck, isn’t there?’’ 

“Yes. How d’you know?’’ 

“I’ve been in an armored train before. 
Only let me see — hear some of the fun I mean, 
and I’ll be grateful. I go at my own risk as a 
non-combatant. ’’ 

The young man thought for a minute. “All 
right,’’ he said. “We’re supposed to be an 

18 Light thnt Failed 


262 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


empty train, and there’s no one to give me a 
wigging at the other end.” 

George and a horde of yelling amateur assist- 
ants had loaded up the mules, and the narrow- 
gauge armored-train, plated with three-eighths 
inch boiler-plate till it looked like one long 
coffin, stood ready to start. 

Two bogie- trucks running before the loco- 
motive were completely covered in with plat- 
ing, except that the leading one was pierced 
in front for the nozzle of a machine-gun and 
the second at either side for lateral fire. The 
trucks together made one iron-vaulted cham- 
ber in which a score of artillerymen were riot- 
ing. 

“Whitechapel — last train! Ah, I see yer 
kissin’ in the first class there!” somebody 
shouted, just as Dick was clambering into the 
forward truck. 

‘ ‘ Lordy ! ’Ere’s a real live passenger for the 
Kew-Tanai-Acton and Balin’ train. Echo, sir. 
Speshul edition ! Star, sir. Shall I get you 
a foot-warmer?” said another. 

“Thanks. I’ll pay my footing,” said Dick, 
and relations of the most amicable were estab- 
lished ere silence came with the arrival of the 
subaltern, and the train jolted out over the 
rough track. 

“This is an immense improvement on shoot- 
ing the unimpressionable Fuzzy in the open,” 
said Dick, from his place in a corner. 

“Oh, but he’s still unimpressed. There he 
goes!” said the subaltern, as a bullet struck 
the outside of the truck. “We always have at 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


263 


least one demonstration against the night- 
train. Generally they attack the rear truck, 
where my junior commands. He gets all the 
fun of the fair. ' ’ 

“Not to-night, though! Listen!” A flight 
of heavy-handed bullets was succeeded by yell- 
ing and shouts. The children of the desert 
valued their nightly amusement and the train 
made an excellent mark. 

“Is it worth while giving them half a hopper 
full?” said the subaltern to the engine, which 
was driven by a lieutenant of Sappers. 

“I should just think so! This is my section 
of the line. They’ll be playing old Harry 
with my permanent way if we don't stop ’em.” 

‘ * Right O ! Hrrmph ! ’ ’ said the machine-gun 
through all its five noses as the subaltern drew 
the lever home. The empty cartridges clashed 
on the floor and the smoke blew back through 
the truck. There was an indiscriminate firing 
at the rear of the train, a return fire from the 
darkness without, and unlimited howling. 
Dick stretched himself on the floor, wild with 
delight at the sounds and the smells. 

“God is very good. I never thought I’d 
hear it again. Give ’em hell, men ; oh, give 
’em hell!” 

The train stopped for some obstruction on 
the line ahead, and a party went out to recon- 
noiter but came back cursing, for spades. The 
children of the desert had piled sand and gravel 
on the rails, and twenty minutes were lost in 
clearing it away. Then the slow progress 
recommenced, R) be varied with more shots. 


264 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


more shoutings, the steady clack and kick of 
the machine-guns and a final difficulty with a 
half lifted rail ere the train came under the 
protection of the roaring camp at Tanai-el- 
Hassan. 

“Now you see why it takes an hour and a 
half to fetch her through,” said the subaltern, 
unshipping the cartridge hopper above his pet 
gun. 

“It was a lark, though. I only wish it had 
lasted twice as long. How superb it must 
have looked from outside,” said Dick, sighing 
regretfully. 

“It palls after the first few nights. By the 
way, when you’ve settled about your mules 
come and see what we can find to eat in my 
tent. Bennil of the Gunners — in the artillery 
lines — mind you don’t fall over the tent-ropes 
in the dark. ” 

But it was all dark to Dick. He could only 
smell the camels, the hay-bales, the cooking, 
the smokey dung-fires and the canvas of the 
tents as he stood where he had dropped from 
the train, shouting for George. There was a 
sound of light-hearted kicking on the iron skin 
of the rear trucks, with squealing and grunt- 
ing. George was unloading the mules. 

The engine was blowing off steam nearly in 
Dick’s ear, a cold wind of the desert danced 
between his legs, he was hungry and felt tired 
and dirty — so dirty that he tried to brush his 
coat with his hands. That was a hopeless job. 
He thrust his hands into his pockets and began 
to count over the many times that he had 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


265 


waited in strange or remote places for trains or 
camels, mules or horses, to carry him to his 
business. In those days he could see — few 
men more clearly — and the spectacle of an 
armed camp at dinner under the stars was an 
ever fresh pleasure to the eye. There was 
color, light, and motion, without which no 
man has much pleasure in living. That night 
there remained for him only one more journey 
through the darkness that never lifts to tell a 
man how far he has traveled. Then he would 
see Torpenhow, who was alive and strong and 
lived in the midst of the action that had 
once made the reputation of a man called Dick 
Heldar — not in the least to be confused with 
the blind, bewildered vagabond who seemed to 
answer to the same name. Yes, he would see 
Torpenhow and come as near to the old life as 
might be. Afterward he would forget every- 
thing: Bessie, who had wrecked the Melancolia 
and so nearly wrecked his life ; Beeton, who 
lived in a strange unreal city full of tin-tacks 
and gas-plugs and matters that no sane man 
needed; that irrational being who had offered 
him love and loyalty for nothing, but had not 
signed her name ; and most of all Maisie, who 
from her own point of view was undeniably 
right in all she did, but, oh, at this distance so 
tantalizingly fair. 

George’s hand on his arm pulled him back to 
the situation. 

“And what now?” said that man. 

“Oh, yes, of course. What now? Take me 
to the camelmen. Take me where the scouts 


266 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


sit when they come in from the desert. They 
sit by their camels, and the camels eat grain 
out of a blanket held up at the corners, and the 
men eat by their sides, just like camels. Take 
me there!” 

The camp was rough and rutt}?-, and Dick 
stumbled many times over the stumps of scrub. 
The scouts were sitting by their beasts, as 
Dick knew they would. The light of the dung- 
fires flickered on their faces, and the camels 
bubbled and mumbled beside them at rest. It 
was no part of his policy to go into the desert 
with a convoy of supplies. That would led to 
impertinent questions, and since a blind non- 
combatant is not needed at the front, probably 
a forced return to Suakim. He must go up 
alone, and go immediately. 

“Now for one last bluff — the biggest of all. 
Peace be with you, brethren!” The watchful 
George steered him to the circle of the nearest 
fire. The heads of the camel sheiks bowed 
gravely, and the camels, scenting a European, 
looked sideways curiously, like brooding hens 
half ready to rise to their feet. 

‘‘A beast and a driver to go to the fighting- 
line in the desert to-night,” said Dick. 

“AMulaid?” said a voice scornfully, naming 
the best baggage-breed that he knew. 

‘ ‘ A Bisharin, ’ ’ returned Dick promptly. ‘ ‘ A 
Bisharin without saddle-galls. Therefore no 
charge of thine, shock-head.” 

Two or three minutes passed. Then : 

“We be knee-haltered for the night, and 
there is no going out from the camp.” 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


267 


“Not for money?” 

“H’m! Ah! English money?” 

Another depressing interval. 

“How much?” 

“Twenty-five pounds English paid into the 
hand of the driver at the journey’s end; and 
as much more into the hand of the camel sheik 
here, to be paid when the driver returns. ’ ’ 

This was royal payment, and the sheik, who 
knew that he would get his commission on the 
deposit, stirred in Dick’s behalf. 

“For scarcely one night’s journey — fifty 
pounds. Land and wells and good trees and 
wives to make a man content for the rest of his 
days. Who speaks?” 

“I,” said a voice. “I will go; but there is 
no going from the camp.” 

“Fool! A- camel can break his knee-halter, 
and the sentries do not fire if men go in chase. 
Twenty-five pounds and another twenty-five 
pounds to the reward — but the beast must be 
a good Bisharin. I will take no baggage- 
camel. ” 

Then the bargaining began, and at the end 
of half an hour the first deposit was paid over 
to the sheik, who talked in low tones to the 
driver. Dick heard the latter say: “A little 
way out only. Any baggage-beast will serve. 
Am I a fool to waste good cattle on a blind 
man?” 

“And though I cannot see,” he lifted his 
voice slightly, “yet I carry that which has six 
eyes, and the driver will sit before me. If we 


268 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


do not reach the English troops in the dawn, 
he will be dead.” 

‘‘But where, in God’s name, are the troops?” 

‘‘Unless thou knowest let another man ride. 
Dost thou know? Remember it will be life or 
death to thee. ” 

‘‘I know,” said the man sullenly. “Stand 
back from my beast. I am going to slip him. ” 

“Not so swiftly. George, hold this camel’s 
head a moment, I want to feel his shoulder. ” 
The hands wandered over the hide till they 
found the branded double-cross that is the 
mark of the Bisharin, the light-built riding 
camel. “That is well. Cut this one loose. 
Remember no blessing of God comes on those 
who try to cheat the blind. ’ ’ 

The men chuckled by the fires at the camel 
driver’s discomfiture. He had intended to 
substitute a slow, saddle-galled baggage- colt. 

“Stand back,” he shouted, lashing the Bish- 
arin under the belly with a quirt. Dick obeyed 
as soon as he felt the nose-string tighten in his 
hand. “Illaha! Aho! He is loose. ” 

With a roar and a grunt the Bisharin lurched 
to his feet and plunged forward toward the 
desert, his driver following with shouts and 
lamentation. George caught Dick’s arm and 
hurried him, stumbling and tripping, past a 
disgusted sentry who was used to stampeding 
camels. 

“What’s the row now?” 

“Every stitch of my kit on that blasted 
dromedary,” Dick answered after the manner 
of a common soldier. 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


269 


“Go on, and take care your throat’s not cut 
outside — you and your dromedaries.” 

The cries ceased when the camel had disap- 
peared behind a hillock, and his driver, calling 
him back, had made him kneel down. 

“ Mount first, ” said Dick. Then, climbing 
into the second seat and gently screwing his 
pistol muzzle into the small of his companion’s 
back, “Go on in God’s name and swiftly. 
Good-by, George. Remember me to Madame, 
and have a good time with your girl. Get 
forward, child of the Pit!” 

A few minutes later he was shut up in 
silence, hardly broken by the creaking of the 
saddle and the soft pad of the big feet. He 
adjusted himself comfortably to the rock and 
pitch of the pace, girthed his belt tighter and 
felt the darkness slide past. For an hour he 
was conscious only of the sense of rapid pro- 
gress. 

“A good camel,” he said at last. 

“He has never been under-fed. He is my 
own, and clean bred.” 

“Go on. ” 

His head dropped on his chest and he tried 
to think, but the tenor of his thoughts was 
broken because he was very sleepy. In the 
half doze it seemed that he was learning a 
punishment hymn at Mrs. Jennett’s. He had 
committed some crime as bad as Sabbath- 
breaking, and she had locked him up in his 
bed-room. But he could never repeat more 
than the first two lines of the hymn : 


270 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


When Israel, of the Lord beloved, 

Out of the land of bondage came. 

He said them over and over thousands of times. 
The driver turned in the saddle to see if there 
were any chance of capturing the revolver and 
ending the ride. Dick roused — struck him 
over the head with the butt and stormed him- 
self wide awake. Somebody hidden in a 
clump of camel-thorn shouted as the camel 
toiled up rising ground. A shot was fired and 
the silence closed again, bringing the desire to 
sleep. Dick could think no longer. He was 
too tired, and stiff, and cramped, to do more 
than nod uneasily from time to time, waking 
with a start and punching the driver with a 
pistol. 

“Is there a moon?” he said drowsily. 

“She is near her setting.” 

“I wish that I could see her. Halt the camel 
a moment, and let me at least hear the desert 
talk.” 

The man obeyed. Out of the utter stillness 
came one breath of wind. It rattled the dry 
leaves of a palm some distance away and 
ceased. A handful of dry earth detached 
itself from the edge of a rain-scarped hillock, 
and crumbled softly to the bottom. 

“Go on. The night is very cold. ” 

Those who have watched till the morning, 
know how the last hour before the light 
lengthens itself into many eternities. It 
seemed to Dick that he had never, since the 
beginning of original darkness, done anything 
whatever save jolt through the air. Once in a 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


271 


thousand years he would finger the nail heads 
on the saddle front, and count them all care- 
fully. Centuries later he would shift his 
revolver from his right hand to his left, and 
allow the eased arm to drop down at his side. 
From the safe distance of London he was 
watching himself thus employed, watching 
critically with a certain amount of scorn. Yet 
whenever he put out his hand to the canvas 
that he might paint the tawny yellow desert 
under the glare of the sinking moon, the black 
shadow of the camel, and the two bowed figures 
atop, that hand held a revolver, and the arm 
was numbed from wrist to collar-bone. More- 
over he was in the dark, and could see no can- 
vas at all. 

The driver grunted, and he was conscious of 
a change in the air. 

“I smell the dawn,” said he. 

‘ ‘ It is here, and yonder are the troops. Have 
I done well?” 

The camel stretched out its neck and roared 
as there came down the wind the pungent reek 
of many camels in square. 

“Go on. We must get there swiftly. Go 
on. 

“They are moving in their camp. There is 
so much dust that I cannot see what they 
do.” 

“Am I in better case? Go forward.” 

They could hear the hum of voices ahead, 
the howling and the bubbling of the beasts, 
and the hoarse cries of the soldiers girthing up 
for the day. Two or three shots were fired. 


272 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


“Is that at us? Surely they can see that I 
am English.” 

“Nay, it is from the desert. Go forward, 
my child. Well it is that the dawn did not 
uncover us an hour ago.” 

The camel headed straight for the column, 
and the shots behind multiplied. The chil- 
dren of the desert had arranged that most 
uncomfortable of surprises, a dawn attack for 
the English troops, and were getting their 
distance by snap-shots at the only moving 
object without the square. 

“What luck! What stupendous and imper- 
ial luck!” said Dick. “It’s just before the 
battle, mother. Oh, God has been most good 
to me! Only” — the agony of the thought 
puckered his face for an instant — “some other 
man will marry her. ’ ’ 

“Allahu! We are in,” said the man, as he 
drove into the rear guard and the camel knelt. 

“Who the deuce are you? Dispatches or 
what? What’s the strength of the enemy 
behind that ridge? How did you get through?” 
said a dozen voices. For all answer Dick took 
a long breath, unbuckled his belt and standing 
up in his stirrups, shouted from the saddle at 
the pitch of a wearied and dusty voice, “Tor- 
penhow! Ohe, Torp! Cooe, Tor-pen-how!” 

A bearded and dusty man raking in the 
ashes of a fire for a light to his pipe moved 
very swiftly toward that cry, as the rear guard, 
facing about, began to fire at the puffs of 
smoke from the hillocks around. 

There was no time to ask any questions. 


THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. 


273 


“Get down, man! Get down behind the 
camel!” 

“No. Put me, I pray, in the fore-front of 
the battle. ” He turned his face to Torpen- 
how, raised a hand to set his helmet straight, 
but miscalculating the distance knocked it off. 
Torpenhow saw that his hair was gray on the 
temples and that his face was the face of an 
old man. The puffs of smoke in the desert 
were growing into an unbroken bank of white. 

“Come down, you damned fool! Dickie, 
come off.” 

And Dick came, falling sideways from the 
Bisharin’s saddle at Torpenhow’s feet. His 
luck had held to the last. 

Torpenhow knelt down under the lee of the 
camel by the side of the driver, with the body 
in his arms. 

“He ordered me to bring him here. I do 
not know anything more than that,” said the 
man sulkily. 

Then all speech was lost in the roar of the 
guns. 


THE END. 


W. B. CoHKEY ComPflHn PoBLicarioHs 

ONE HUNDRED SELECTED POPULAR STANDARD BOOKS. 
MASTERPIECES OF LITERATURE, BY THE 
WORLD’S MOST FAMOUS AUTHORS 

Printed From New, Perfect Putes 


BOUND IN THREE SERIES, AS FOLLOWS: 

THE IVORY SERIES 

SEE LIST OF TITLES ON NEXT PAGE 

Three orit^inal full page illustrations and portrait of the 
author in each book. Beautifully illuminated title page. Printed 
TPith the greatest care on fine laid paper, from clear, open-faced 
type. Bound in superb style with white vellum cloth and imported 
fancy paper sides, artistically stamped in gold, with gold top and 
silk ribbon marker. Each book in neat covered box. 16mo size. 
An exquisite series of gift books. Price, 60c. 

THB UNIVERSITY SERIES 

SEE LIST OF TITLES ON NEXT PAGE 

An unexcelled library of standard works. Bound in a beautiful 
and durable heavy ribbed cloth, handsomely stamped in gilt and 
two colors of ink. A perfect portrait of the author and three full 
page original illustrations in each volume. Titlepage in colors. 
Printed on fine laid paper, from new, clear type. Wrapped in neat 
colored printed wrappers. 16mo size. Price, 35c. 

THE AMARANTH SERIES 

SEE LIST OF TITLES ON NEXT PAGE 

The latest, handsomest, and best selected series of standard 
books at a popular price. Printed on good paper from new type, 
and bound in strong cloth, artistically stamped with original 
design in two colors of ink. Printed colored wrappers. 16mo size. 
Price, 26c. 

All of the above series are for sale by leading booksellers 
everywhere. Ask for them by the name of the series, or 
will be sent postpaid, on receipt of price, by the publishers. 

W. B. CONKEY COMPANY, Chicago 

WORKS: Hammond, Ind. 


W. B. CONKEY COMPANY’S PUBLICATIONS 




i 

I- 


1. Abb6 Constantin Hal6v7 

2. Adventures of a Brownie... Mulock 

3. All Aboard Optic 


4. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland 

Carroll 

6. An Attic Philosopher in Paris 

Souvestre 

6. Autobiography of Benjamin 

Franklin 

7. Autocrat of the Breakfast Table 

Holmes 

-11. Bacon’s Essays Bacon 

‘12. Barrack Room Ballads. . .Kipling 

13. Beside the Bonnie Brier Busn 
Maclaren 

14. Black Beauty Sewall 

15. Blitbedale Romance. .Hawthorne 

16. Boat Club Optic 

17. Bracebridge Hall... Irving 

18. Brooks’ Addresses 

19. Browning’s Poems Browning 

24. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage 
Byron 

25. Child’s History of England 

26. Cranford Gaskell 

27. Crown of Wild Olives Ruskin 

30. Daily Food for Christians 

31. Departmental Ditties. .. .Kipling 

32. Dolly Dialogues Hope 

33. Dream Life Mitchell 

34. Drummond’s Addresses 
Drammond 

37. Emerson’s Essays, Vol. 1 

Emerson 


38. Emerson’s Essays, Vol. 2 

Emerson 

39.. Ethics of the Dust Ruskin 

40. Evangeline Longfellow 

43. Flower Fables Alcott 

46. Gold Dust Yonge 

49. Heroes and Hero Worship, Carlyle 

60. Hiawatha Longfellow 

61. House of Seven Gables 
Hawthorne 

62. House of the Wolf Weyman 

67. Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow 
Jerome 

68. Idylls of the King Tennyson 

69. Imitation of Christ 
Thos. a’Eempis 

60. In Memoriam Tennyson 

64. John Halifax Mulock 

67. Kept for the Master’s Use 

Havergal 

68. Kidnapped Stevenson 

I 69. King of the Golden River.. Ruskin 

73. Laddie 

74. Lady of the Lake Scott 

75. Lalia Rookh Moore 

76. Let Us Follow Him.. .Sienkiewicz 

77. Light of Asia Arnold 


78. Light That Failed.... Kipling 

79. Locksley Hall Tennyson 

80. Longfellow’s Poems 

Longfellow 

81. Lorna Doone Blackmore 

82. Lowell’s Poems Lowell 

83. Lucile Meredith 

88. Marmion Scott 

89. Mosses from an Old Manse 

Hawthorne 

93. Natural Law in the Spiritual 

World Drammond 

94. Now or Never Optic 

97. Paradise Lost Milton 

98. Paul and Virginia 

Saint Pierre 

99. Pilgrim’s Progress Bunyan 

100. Plain Tales from the Hills 

Kipling 

101. Pleasures of Life Lubbock 

102. Prince of the House of David 

Ingraham 

103. Princess Tennyson 

104. Prue and I Curtis 

107 Queen of the Air Ruskin 

110. Rab and His Friends. ..Brown 

111. Representative Men . . Emerson 

112. Reveries of a Bachelor 


Mitchell 

113. Rollo in Geneva Abbott 

114. Rollo in Holland Abbott 

115. Rollo in London Abbott 

118. Rollo in Naples Abbott 

117. Rollo in Paris Abbott 

118. Rollo in Rome Abbott 

119. Rollo in Scotland Abbott 

120. Rollo in Switzerland. . .Abbott 

121. Rollo on the Atlantic. ..Abbott 

122. Rollo on the Rhine Abbott 

123. Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 

Fitzgerald 

128. Sartor Resartus Carlyle 

129. Scarlet Letter Hawthorne 

130 Sesame and Lilies Ruskin 

131. Sign of the Four Doyle 

132. Sketch Book Irving 

133. Stickit Minister Crockett 

140. Tales from Shakespeare 

C. and Mary Lamb 


141. Tanglewood Tales.. Hawthorne 

142. True and Beautiful.... Ruskin 

143. Three Men in a Boat. .Jerome 

144. Through the Looking Glass 

Carroll 

145. Treasure Island Stevenson 

146. Twice Told Tales. .Hawthorne 

150, Uncle Tom’s Cabin Stowe 

154. Vicar of Wnkefield.. Goldsmith 

158. Whittier’s Poems. .. .Whittier 

159. Wide, Wide World ....Warner 

160. Window in Thrums Barrio 

161. Wonder Book Hawthomo 


HI. I G9IIKEY Gomrs Febuciitioiis 

COMPLETE LIST OF THE POETIC AHD PROSE 

WORKS OF 

Ella Wheeler Wilcox 


POEMS OF PASSION. 12mo. cloth $1.00. Presentation 
Edition— white vellum, gold top, $1.50. Presentation 
Edition^ — half calf, gold top, $2.50. 

POEMS OF PASSION. Quarto, cloth. Illustrated 
Edition, $1.50. 

POEMS OF PASSION. Pocket Edition, Illustrated — 16mo, 
cloth, 75 cents; full morocco, gold edges, $2.50. 

Human nature is less of a mystery after the reading of this book. 
“Only a woman of genius could produce such a remarkable 
Illustrated London News. 

MAURINE AND OTHER POEMS. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. 
Presentation Edition— white vellum, gold top, $1.50, 
Presentation Edition — half calf, gold top, $2.50. 
Beautiful thoughts and healthy inspiration in every line. 
*'Maurine is an ideal poem about a perfect woman.”— TAe South. 

POEMS OF PLEASURE. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. Presenta- 
tion Edition — white vellum, gold top, $1.50. Presenta- 
tion Edition — half calf, gold top, $2.50. 

These poems make life doubly sweet and cheerfuL 
“Mrs. Wilcox is an artist with a touch that reminds one of 
Lord Byron’s impassionate strains.”— Parts Register. 

THREE WOMEN. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. Presentation 
Edition — art binding, gold top, boxed, $1.50. 

Her latest and greatest poem. This marvelous narrative of 
thrilling interest depicts the lives of three good and beautiful 
women in every phase of weakness^ passion, pride, love, sympathy 
and tenderness. 

AN AMBITIOUS MAN. (Prose.) 12mo, cloth, $1.00. 

“Vivid realism stands forth from every page of this fascinating 
book.”— JSveri/ Day. 


WORKS OF ELLA WHEELER WILCOX (Continued) 


HOW SALVATOR WON AND OTHER POEMS. 12mo, 
cloth, $1.00. Presentation Edition — white vellum, gold 
top, $1.50. Presentation Edition— half calf, gold top, 
$2.50. 

A choice collection of recitations, speciaUy compiled for read- 
ers and impersonators. 

“Her name is a household word. Her great power lies in depict- 
ing human emotions ; and in handling that grandest of all passions 
—love— she wields the pen of a master.”- T/ie Saturday Record. 

CUSTER AND OTHER POEMS. Handsomely illustrated. 
12mo, cloth, $1.00. Presentation Edition — white vellum, 
gold top. $1.50. Presentation Edition— half calf, gold 
top, $2.50, 

A grand epic of the exploits and massacre of the immortal 
Custer. 

”One cannot help gaining new impetus for the spiritual exist- 
ence from coming in contact, mentally, with such ideal sentiments 
and emotions as this rarely gifted poetess voices in magnificent 
veTBe.”— Universal Truth. 

AN ERRING WOMAN’S LOVE. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. 
Presentation Edition — white vellum, gold top, $1.50. 
Presentation Edition — half calf, gold top. $2.50. 

‘‘Power and pathos characterize this magnificent poem. A 
deep understanding of life and an intense sympathy are beauti- 
fully expressed.”— rrihwiic. 

MEN, WOMEN AND EMOTIONS. (Prose.) 12mo, heavy 
enameled paper cover, 50 cents ; English cloth, $1.00. 

A skillful analysis of social habits, customs and follies. 

“Her fame has reached all parts of the world, and her popular- 
ity seems to grow with each succeeding year.”— American Newsman. 

THE BEAUTIFUL LAND OF NOD. (Poems, songs and 
stories.) With over sixty original illustrations. Quarto, 
cloth, $1.00. 

The delight of the nursery. A charming mother’s book. 

“The foremost baby’s book of the world.”— J'Te to Orleans 
Picayune. 

PRESENTATION SETS. Poems of Passion, Maurine, 
Poems of Pleasure, How Salvator Won, and Custer, are 
supplied In sets of 3, 4, or 5 titles, as may be desired, in 
neat boxes, without extra charge. 

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX’S WORKS are for sale by leading book- 
sellers everywhere, or will be sent postpaid on receipt of price by 
the Publishers. 

W, B. CONKBY COMPANY, Chicago 


5 















t 


0 


I 


V 


« 




i 






•• 





4 


I 1 




I 





f 


4 i 




I 






» 


t 


4 


\ 


* 





« 


I 


4 


# 



t 


/ 


f 





4 


1 


\ 




I 


I 





/ 


•J 


* 4 

* 

s ' 

k • 

t « 

r < 


t 

«» 


% 



✓ 


t 

♦ 




$ 




I 



> 


I 






% ' • 


I 


t 




Vt 














LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 





ODOEEDE^Bfll. 



